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 3,974 sustainability-oriented doctoral theses, representing approximately 32% of 12,268 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. The thesis metadata was exported by a TSpace administrator and shared with CECCS in August 2023.
The following information was documented in the inventory: Author, Advisor/Supervisor, Title, Department, Date Issued, Abstract, Degree 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 | Keyword(s) | SDG(s) covered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abawi, Zuhra Elizabeth | Wane, Njoki N||Lopez, Ann E | Troubling the Teacher Diversity Gap: The Perpetuation of Whiteness Through Practices of Bias Free Hiring in Ontario School Boards | Social Justice Education | 2018-03 | Teaching staff in Ontario schools do not reflect the increasing diversity of the students who occupy Ontario classrooms today. School boards across Ontario have come under considerable scrutiny regarding the lack of diverse teacher representation that adequately reflects Ontario’s demographic composition (Childs et al., 2010; Ryan, et al., 2009; Turner, 2015). This thesis addresses the Ontario teacher diversity gap (James Turner, 2017; Turner 2015; Turner, 2014; Ryan, et al., 2009) in relation to provincial equity and inclusive educational policies, which have been created to address the dominance of white teachers in publicly-funded education in Ontario. However, findings from the research indicate that these policies have not had the desired results, and in some ways have contributed to perpetuating the status quo, and the ongoing overrepresentation of white teachers in schools. The thesis furthermore addressed the notion of bias-free hiring (Fine Handlesman, 2012; Hassouneh, 2013) practices through narratives of Ontario teachers themselves. The predominant assumption of bias-free hiring is that one can divorce themselves from their unconscious biases and preconceptions of groups who are dissimilar to them in order to recruit the so-called “most qualified applicant”. The narrative of the “most qualified applicant” is a term invoked when racialized people seek access to employment opportunities. School administrators have great influence on who is hired; therefore it is important for administrators to interrogate their own social locations and positions of power, and unconscious bias in terms of how they recruit teachers. Findings from the research indicate that teachers from racialized groups have different experiences when seeking employment as teachers in publicly-funded school boards in Ontario. In response to this the EHT Equity Hiring Toolkit for Ontario School Administrators has been developed to support school administrators to recruit more diverse teachers. The EHT provides a framework for school administrators to engage in antiracist praxis and action, by examining their social location, and ways that their positionality impacts the hiring decisions they make. School administrators can use the creation of the Toolkit based on the findings of the data that emerged from the research as a Creative Professional Activity (CPA). I consider this to be my contribution to the field of social justice education and leadership. | Ed.D. | educat, inclusive, employment, justice, | 4, 8, 16 |
| Abbarin, Nastaran | Ganss, Bernhard | The Role of Enamel Matrix Protein Amelotin on Biomineralization | Dentistry | 2015-11 | Dental caries is one of the most common chronic diseases of people worldwide. Despite recent advances in oral health care and restorative dentistry, the problem of dental caries and erosion remains unresolved due to the lack of knowledge of the natural biomineralization process of tooth tissues. Dental enamel plays a crucial role in preventing the tooth from destruction. However, if damaged or lost, it cannot be regenerated. Understanding the molecular mechanisms behind formation of enamel would not only make restoration of the tissue possible, but would also provide new insights for optimum design of calcium phosphate based biomaterials for dental and orthopedic applications. Amelotin (AMTN) is a recently discovered protein that is primarily expressed during the maturation stage of enamel formation and is localized at the cell-mineral interface on the surface enamel layer. In vivo studies using transgenic mice suggest a direct regulatory function for AMTN in enamel biomineralization. The aim of this PhD project was to test this hypothesis using different in vitro model systems of mineralization. I first showed that recombinant human (rh) AMTN accelerates hydroxyapatite mineralization in a dose-dependent manner when dissolved in the mineralization SBF buffer. Inactivation of a conserved SSEEL motif resulted in significant reduction in the mineralizing ability of the full-length molecule. I also evaluated the importance of phosphorylation in mineralization by testing a synthetic peptide containing a short sequence of AMTN including phosphorylated SSEEL in the crystallization assay and showed that it promoted mineralization albeit to a lesser degree than rh-AMTN. Detailed characterization of secretory enamel matrix in overexpressor mice showed rapid and uncontrolled mineralization. I also tested the mineralizing ability of AMTN in an established osteoblast cell line and demonstrated that AMTN transfected or introduced in the culture media in the recombinant form both accelerate the formation of mineralized nodules. AMTN molecules embedded in collagen gel matrix were also able to mineralize the collagen material in the SBF buffer within a few hours. The findings of this PhD project provide solid evidence that AMTN is a promoter of hydroxyapatite mineralization and likely a key player in the establishment of surface enamel layer. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Abbey, Melissa Sarah | Reaume, Geoffrey | Madness and Poverty in Toronto: A Narrative Analysis. | Social Justice Education | 2018-11 | This research is a culmination of my experience with Madness and its presence in the world. I question what it means to experience mental health ‘trouble’ in a world that seeks to live under the guise of normalcy. Trouble, as I can most clearly navigate it, happens when something steps outside of the boundaries of normalcy. When life is experienced by an individual as something outside of social convention, the individual becomes ‘marked’ with difference based on a shared perspective of what is correct. My doctoral research therefore examines this phenomenon to understand how one lives a ‘spoiled identity’ in a world that seems to be in defiance of it. I carry out a narrative analysis of textual data to question the unquestioned and ubiquitous presence of mental health narratives within contemporary Western culture. I have not lived in poverty but I take up its narrative in connection to Madness as an intrinsic precursor to something amiss in our society. In addressing these social inequalities, I utilize key conceptual tools such as stigma/spoiled identity, narrative prosthesis, and the interplay between ‘I’ and ‘We’ narratives. As an Interpretive Sociologist, I use the lenses of ethnomethodology and phenomenology to engage in this discussion. The data collected explores and combines the individual and social experience, with Madness and poverty being the phenomena that depict this understanding. My data comes from present- day Toronto newspapers and mental healthcare programming information packages collected from four research sites in Toronto. I utilize newspapers as an object of my research because of their powerful role in narrating public and dominant views. I couple these narratives with an analysis of mental healthcare programming information packages to see where these dominant views appear within society-at-large. | Ph.D. | health, poverty | 1, 3 |
| Abboud, Rida | Neysmith, Sheila | The Social Organization of the Lives of 'Semi-skilled' International Migrant Workers in Alberta: Political Rationalities, Administrative Logic and Actual Behaviours | Social Work | 2013-06 | This institutional ethnography is an inquiry into the particular migrant category of International Migrant Workers (IMW) in Canada (otherwise known as Temporary Foreign Workers). It looks at how the daily lives of IMWs who have been deemed as ‘semi-skilled’ by the National Occupational Classification (NOC) system are organized by their immigration and job status in Canada. These IMWs are working primarily in the food service, hotel or retail industries in front-line and often precarious employment in Southern and Western Alberta. The data was collected through a literature review, interviews, observations, and textual analysis. The participants that informed this inquiry are IMWs, service providers in the immigrant sector, representatives from the Alberta Government, and an immigrant recruiter/consultant. This study uses an ‘ideological circle’ (Yan, 2003), which maps out the process through which governmental ideology is filtered down to all levels of society via a set of ideas, knowledge, procedures and methods about people and processes. It provides a vehicle to identify the specific social relations that organize people in different sites. It becomes apparent through this mapping that along with the political rationalities of neoliberal criteria and the logic of globalization, and market civilization and citizenship, certain administrative logic and technologies of government such as situating IMWs as economic units in the Canadian nation-state, processes of skill codification, and devolution of immigration policies and programs, become the foundations for the ways that IMWs live their lives in Canada. In particular, we can see how and why they ‘work’ for permanent residency, how and why they become vulnerable to precarious employment in their workplace and in other ways, and how and why they become isolated through family separation. The thesis ends with a look into how social workers and social service organizations are managing ‘professional’ relationships with migrant populations whose lives are organized in the above ways, and questions whether it’s possible at all to move beyond supporting ‘bare life’ (Agamben, 1998). | PhD | employment, worker | 8 |
| Abdel-Qadir, Husam | Anderson, Geoffrey M | The Spectrum, Impact, and Management of Cardiovascular Disease in Ontario Women with Early Stage Breast Cancer | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2018-06 | Background: There are limited data about the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease after early stage breast cancer. Methods: We conducted four cohort studies utilizing data from Ontario women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer between 1998 and 2015. The first study describes causes of death after breast cancer, with a focus on patient strata where death from cardiovascular causes may exceed that from breast cancer. The second study examines hospital presentations for different categories of cardiovascular disease, and their temporal relationship to heart failure, comparing early stage breast cancer cases to age-matched women without cancer. The third study develops a score for predicting cardiovascular risk after early stage breast cancer. The final study examines 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme-A reductase inhibitor (also known as statins) use after early stage breast cancer as a marker of cardiovascular preventative therapy, with comparison to cancer-free women of similar cardiovascular risk. Results: Breast cancer was the most common cause of death. Among patients with prior cardiovascular disease, the risks of death from breast cancer and cardiovascular disease were equivalent for the first five years, after which death from cardiovascular causes was more frequent. For women aged ≥66 years who survived ≥5 years after diagnosis, cardiovascular disease exceeded breast cancer as the leading cause of death at ten years post-diagnosis. The 10-year cumulative incidence of cardiovascular hospitalization was 11.7% after early stage breast cancer and 10.6% in controls. The ratio of cardiovascular disease rates between the cohorts increased with time. 76% of cardiovascular hospitalizations were for diagnoses other than heart failure. 36% of first heart failure presentations were preceded by hospital presentation with another cardiovascular disease. We developed a score to predict the risk of death or hospitalization from cardiovascular disease. Model calibration and discrimination were good. The c-index in the validation cohort was 81.3% at 5 years. Finally, we observed that women with early stage breast cancer were less likely to dispense statins compared to cancer-free women, though the differences were small. Relevance: These data provide useful insights into the importance of cardiovascular disease and how its management can be improved in women with early stage breast cancer. | Ph.D. | women | 5 |
| Abji, Nadeem Nasir | Leon-Garcia, Alberto | Robust and Energy Efficient Service Provider Networks | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2015-11 | This thesis focuses on the energy efficiency of service provider networks. It examines methodologies for reducing the energy consumption as well as greening the operation of the network through the integration of renewable energy systems. It studies the impact of these techniques on network performance and robustness. In order to reduce energy consumption we focus on the problem of energy-aware network planning and traffic engineering. Utilizing the network criticality metric, from network science, and an optimization formulation we quantify the energy-robustness trade-off of green traffic flow assignments. We also develop a robust, dynamic lightpath assignment algorithm, which provides energy savings at low loads and an order of magnitude better blocking performance at high loads. We then examine the challenge of integrating renewable energy in core networks to minimize cost and emissions. We show that renewable energy systems can compromise network robustness and increase disruptions in the network because usage must 'follow the sun'. We study the integration of energy storage systems to mitigate these concerns and quantify the potential savings in energy and cost. We develop a distributed, energy management algorithm to make energy storage charging/discharging decisions as well as electricity purchases for a service provider. Finally we examine the problem of content caching in service provider networks. We study the energy consumption of a caching scheme designed for performance and propose energy-aware modifications. We conclude by studying the impact of over-the-top video-on-demand services like Youtube and Netflix on service provider access networks and propose methods to reduce energy consumption and network congestion. | Ph.D. | energy; renewable, consum | 7, 12 |
| Abji, Salina | Korteweg, Anna C. | Emerging Logics of Citizenship: Activism in Response to Precarious Migration and Gendered Violence in an Era of Securitization | Sociology | 2017-06 | Postnationalism is a theory of citizenship that emerged in the 1990s, which rejected national membership as an exclusionary or limited way of organizing rights and belonging, and sought instead to re-imagine citizenship beyond the nation-state. The approach was largely discredited at the time for underestimating the persistent influence of nationalism and for lacking empirical evidence. In this project, I join a small group of scholars who argue for a reconsideration of postnationalism, particularly for scholarship examining the production of illegality and securitization of borders across countries in the global north. I add to this scholarship by offering an extended case analysis of postnational activism in Toronto, in response to major restructuring of Canada’s refugee and immigration system and expanded deportation regime between 2006 to 2015. Using ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and discourse analysis, I show how some activists used postnational human rights frames to restrict immigration authorities from entering schools, women’s shelters, and other city spaces for the purposes of investigating and deporting non-status migrants. Theorized as postnational acts of citizenship, such approaches were useful for exposing the structural violence produced through state regulation of borders and citizenship, leading to the articulation of a ‘no borders’ politics. However, as a social movement strategy, postnational claims were also limited in their capacity to imagine alternatives to state protection, particularly for non-status women in situations of gender-based violence. My findings also point to the erosion of citizenship for a group of activists working as service providers within state-funded institutions, where processes of securitization altered their working conditions and produced feelings of fear, despair, and even terror in how they interpreted the actions of the Conservative party in power at the time. Overall, this research draws attention to the increased salience of postnationalism for studies of social inequality in the contemporary immigration context. | Ph.D. | gender, women, equality, institution | 5, 16 |
| Abou-Beih, Mahmoud Osman | Abdulhai, Baher | Semantic Web Based Multi-agent Framework for Real-time Freeway Traffic Incident Management System | Civil Engineering | 2012-06 | Recurring traffic congestion is attributable to steadily increasing travel demand coupled with constrained space and financial resources for infrastructure expansion. Another major source of congestion is non-recurrent incidents that disrupt the normal operation of the infrastructure. Aiming to optimize the utilization of the transportation infrastructure, innovative infrastructure management techniques that incorporate on edge technological equipment and information systems need to be adopted to manage recurrent and non-recurrent congestion and reduce their adverse externalities. The framework presented in this thesis lays the foundation for multi-disciplinary semantic web based incident management. During traffic incident response, involved stakeholders will share their knowledge and resources, forming an ad-hoc framework within which each party will focus on its core competencies and cooperate to achieve a coherent incident management process. Negotiation between various response agencies operators is performed using intelligent software agents, alleviating the coordination and synchronization burden of the massive information flow during the incident response. The software agents provide a decision support to human operators based on the reasoning provided from the underlying system knowledge models. Ontological engineering is used to lay the foundation of the knowledge models, which are coded in a web based ontology language, allowing a decentralized access to various elements of the system. The whole system communication infrastructure is based on the Semantic Web technologies. The semantic web facilitates the use of, in an enhanced manner, the already existing web technologies as the communication infrastructure of the proposed system. Its semantic capabilities help to resolve the information and data interoperability issues among various parties. The web services concepts combined with the semantic web allow the direct exploration and access of knowledge models, resources, and data repertories held by various parties. The developed ontology along with the developed software system were tested and evaluated by domain experts and targeted system users. Based on the conducted evaluation, both the ontology and the software system were found to be promising tools in developing pervasive, collaborative and multi-disciplinary traffic incident management systems | PhD | infrastructure | 9 |
| Abou-Tabickh, Lilian | Williams, Melissa S. | Al-'Asabiyya in Context: Choice and Historical Continuity in Al-Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldūn | Political Science | 2019-11 | The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the meaning of the term Al-'Aṣabiyya in Al-Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldūn in context. In Al-Muqaddima, he constructs a method for the scientific study of history, the subject matter of which is human association. Human association is necessary for human beings, but by its nature, it requires political authority and economic organization. By order of existence, political authority is acquired only by al-‘aṣabiyya. Therefore, al-‘aṣabiyya is an “essential condition” in the world, and it can be perceived by the senses and the intellect. It is a power that “secures” political victory, and as such, it becomes the source that enables protection and the preservation of human life, the development of urban culture through the management of economic cooperation, and social harmony. In this study, I use a linguistic-contextual method to show that the form of al-'aṣabiyya that secures political authority is not natural, irrational, or aggressive. Rather, it is the fruit of the labour of unity and agreement between individuals and groups (‘aṣabiyyāt). It is a power that individuals manufacture intentionally either by way of descent, alliance, or allegiance to gain political authority. They are ahl al-‘aṣabiyya who achieve their goal “in the ordinary way,” that is, by overcoming others by their power of unity, and praiseworthy qualities. This study also shows that there is no organic connection between al-‘aṣabiyya and the form or quality of rulership. In fact, Ibn Khaldūn’s rejection of hereditary rule, condemnation of tyranny, and argument against the necessity of prophecy show that rational politics suffices for the management of human association. His statement on the science of physics, the use of the term “matter” in an economic sense to mean money, and the connection between injustice and economic policies show that the decline of the polity is not natural but a matter of choice between moderation and excessiveness. The detailed exposition of these various elements shows that the pattern of history in Al-Muqaddima is not cyclical. Instead, history is a narrative about cultural transmission, political and historical continuity, the expansion of one power, and the contraction of another. | Ph.D. | institution | 16 |
| Aboudina, Aya | Abdulhai, Baher | Optimized Time-dependent Congestion Pricing System for Large Networks: Integrating Distributed Optimization, Departure Time Choice, and Dynamic Traffic Assignment in the Greater Toronto Area | Civil Engineering | 2016-11 | Congestion pricing is one of the most widely contemplated methods to manage traffic congestion. The purpose of congestion pricing is to manage traffic demand generation and supply allocation by charging fees (i.e., tolling) for the use of certain roads in order to distribute traffic demand more evenly over time and space. This study presents a system for large-scale optimal time-varying congestion pricing policy determination and evaluation. The proposed system integrates a theoretical model of dynamic congestion pricing, a distributed optimization algorithm, a departure time choice model, and a dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) simulation platform, creating a unified optimal (location- and time-specific) congestion pricing system. The system determines and evaluates the impact of optimal tolling on road traffic congestion (supply side) and travellers’ behavioural choices, including departure time and route choices (demand side). For the system’s large-scale nature and the consequent computational challenges, the optimization algorithm is executed concurrently on a parallel cluster. The system is applied to simulation-based case studies of tolling major highways in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) while capturing the regional effects of tolling. The models are developed and calibrated using regional household travel survey data that reflect travellers’ heterogeneity. The DTA model is calibrated using actual traffic counts from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and the City of Toronto. The main results indicate that: (1) more benefits are attained from variable tolling due to departure time rescheduling as opposed to mostly re-routing only in the case of flat tolling, (2) widespread spatial and temporal re-distributions of traffic are observed across the regional network in response to tolling significant – yet limited – highways in the region, (3) optimal variable pricing mirrors congestion patterns and induces departure time re-scheduling and rerouting patterns, resulting in improved average travel times and schedule delays at all scales, (4) tolled routes have different sensitivities to identical toll changes, (5) the start times of longer trips are more sensitive (elastic) to variable distance-based tolling policies compared to shorter trips, (6) optimal tolls intended to manage traffic demand are significantly lower than those intended to maximize toll revenues, (7) toll payers benefit from tolling even before toll revenues are spent, and (8) the optimal tolling policies determined offer a win-win solution in which travel times are improved while also raising funds to invest in sustainable transportation infrastructure. | Ph.D. | infrastructure | 9 |
| Abrahamyan, Lusine | Feldman, Brian M. | Designing Randomized Clinical Trials for Rare Diseases | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2010-11 | Objectives: 1) To evaluate the quality of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in rare diseases using Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) as an example, 2) to evaluate the time to treatment response in patients with rheumatic diseases, 3) to evaluate the power of the Randomized Placebo-Phase Design (RPPD) under various response time distributions, and 4) to examine the use of Value of Information (VOI) methodology in the optimal design of clinical trials for rare disease using hemophilia prophylaxis with factor VIII as an example. Methods. The methods include a systematic review, a secondary analysis of data from an RCT and from a patient registry, a computer simulation study, and an evaluation of hypothetical RCT scenarios with VOI methodology. Results. The quality of RCTs in JIA based on selected quality indicators was poor with some positive changes over time. In the data sets used for the assessment of hazard distributions, the response times followed mostly generalized gamma or lognormal distributions. The impact of time-to-event distribution on the power of RCTs was assessed in computer simulations. Based on the simulation results, the highest sample sizes were observed for response times following the exponential distribution. In most scenarios, the parallel groups RCT design had higher power than the RPPD. The conclusion of the VOI analyses indicated that at threshold values lower than 400,000 the current evidence supported the use of on-demand therapy. Threshold values higher than 1,000,000 supported the use of tailored or alternate day prophylaxis. At threshold values between 400,000 - 1,000,000 the optimal decision varied from on-demand to prophylaxis therapies. Conclusions. New, more powerful and acceptable designs should be developed for rare diseases. When time-to-event outcomes are used, investigators should use various sources of information to evaluate response time distributions before the new trial is designed, and consider this information in sample size calculation and analysis. VOI methodology should be used in the planning stage of studies to determine the relevant costs and benefits of future research, and to determine the optimal trial parameters that maximize the cost-benefit trade-off. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Abramovich, Ilona Alex | Burstow, Bonnie | Young, Queer and Trans, Homeless, and Besieged: A Critical Action Research Study of How Policy and Culture Create Oppressive Conditions for LGBTQ Youth in Toronto's Shelter System | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2014-06 | This dissertation is about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and queer (LGBTQ) youth and the shelter system. This work focuses on the denial of home and safety to queer and trans youth. Over approximately two years, different groups of people came together to discuss what is holding up and sustaining the homophobia and transphobia in the shelter system, how homophobia and transphobia occurs and is managed in the shelter system, and how broader policy issues serve to create oppressive contexts for LGBTQ youth. This is a Critical Action Research study that was informed by Critical Ethnography and Institutional Ethnography. In order to investigate what disjunctures occur for LGBTQ youth in the shelter system and how those disjunctures come about, this dissertation draws upon one-on-one interviews with LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, shelter Executive Directors, City of Toronto management, and training facilitators; focus groups with frontline shelter staff; and training observations. This study suggests that it is both the excessive bureaucratic regulation and the lack of necessary bureaucratic regulation in highly significant areas, that play a key role in creating the disjunctures that occur for queer and trans youth in the shelter system. This dissertation describes the findings of this study in five major themes, which include: Homophobia and Transphobia in the Shelter System, LGBTQ Youth Invisibility, Inadequate, Invasive and Otherwise Problematic Rules, Lack of Knowledge, and Inconsistent Conformity to Formal Rules. A Digital Storytelling project was created with one youth and was used as a Knowledge Mobilization strategy for this study. The film helped generate extensive media attention and facilitated change in the shelter system, at the City of Toronto, and at a policy level. This research study has made it possible for the voices of LGBTQ homeless youth to be heard in the context of a critical public health and social justice problem. Detailed policy and practice recommendations and changes to the Toronto Shelter Standards are provided at the end of this dissertation and are meant to help Toronto's shelter system become safe, accessible, and supportive of LGBTQ youth. | Ph.D. | justice, gender, queer, institution | 5, 16 |
| Abu Jayyab, A Khaled | Reichel, Clemens | Nomads in Late Chalcolithic Northern Mesopotamia: Mobility and Social Change in the 5th and 4th Millennium BC | Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations | 2019-06 | Due to the nature of their lifestyle and inherent mobility nomadic groups of the past have left little if any discernible imprint in excavated archaeological records. This is regrettable since most regions of the world that saw the emergence of complex societies were shaped by pastoralism as much as by agriculture, requiring us to study the modes in which nomadic and sedentary populations interacted with each other. My study addresses the transformative impact that nomadic groups had on Northern Syria and Northern Mesopotamia during the Early Late Chalcolithic period (4500 – 3800 BC), a crucial time span of social and technological innovations that foreshadowed the “Urban Revolution” of the 4th millennium BC. Using chaîne opératoire as underlying analytical tool I studied material assemblages from surveys and excavations across southeastern Turkey, Northern Syria, northern Iraq and Western Iran to identify items of material culture that can be associated with non-sedentary populations and their seasonal movements within this greater region. This study was complemented by detailed petrographic analyses of ceramics from key sites that had seen extensive excavation. My study not only contributes to a better regional understanding of Late Chalcolithic societies (notably the social and economic relationships between settlements and hinterland) but also provides a template for how to enhance the visibility of the “invisible nomad” within the archaeological record. | Ph.D. | urban | 11 |
| Abughanm, Saad | Katz, Ariel | The Protection of Pharmaceutical Patents and Data under TRIPS and US-Jordan FTA: Exploring the Limits of Obligations and Flexibilities: A Study of the Impacts on the Pharmaceutical Sector in Jordan | Law | 2012-06 | In 2000, Jordan signed the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement) and a free trade agreement with the US (USJFTA). Both commitments have required Jordan to comply with various obligations, including full compliance with the minimum standards for the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) under the TRIPS Agreement and TRIPS-Plus IP standards set out under the terms of the USJFTA. Enticed by views that strong IP protection would create prosperity in the Kingdom by promoting technological innovation and inducing transfer and dissemination of technology to Jordanians, Jordan implemented the provisions of TRIPS and the USJFTA to the letter. However, Jordan focused little attention on important “TRIPS flexibilities”. In particular, Jordan has qualified parallel importation and limited the grounds of compulsory licenses. In addition, Jordan provides pharmaceutical testing data with data exclusivity. This thesis focuses on the Jordanian experience in the pharmaceutical sector. It argues that strong patent protection has not been conducive to the promotion of technological innovation and the transfer and dissemination of technology. Moreover, this protection has resulted in adverse outcomes such as increased drug prices, unavailability of essential medicines in some public hospitals for serious diseases, and a dwindling local pharmaceutical industry, in part, as a consequence of its inability to access advanced, patented technology on reasonable commercial terms. The thesis also investigates the legitimacy of establishing certain grounds of compulsory licensing by Jordan, even in light of the TRIPS-Plus obligations under the USJFTA. It advocates that such grounds contribute to the promotion of technical innovation, lead to the transfer of advanced technology, and above all improve access to affordable medicines. Finally, the thesis explores Jordan’s obligations to protect pharmaceutical testing data under TRIPS and USFTA arguing that neither of these two instruments requires data exclusivity as claimed by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and some developed countries. | SJD | rights; trade; industr; innovation | 9, 10, 16 |
| Acuna, Maria Virginia | Clark, Caryl||Munjic, Sanda | The Spanish Lamento: Discourses of Love, Power, and Gender in the Musical Theatre (1696-1718) | Music | 2016-06 | Weeping male characters dominated lamenting scenes in the mythological zarzuela during the tumultuous years surrounding the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). Always played by a woman en travesti, the lamenting male became a stock character in this musical genre, entertaining audiences while allegorically reflecting Madrid’s elite at the turn of the eighteenth century. This dissertation uncovers an as yet unexplored proliferation of male laments in staged drama of the period while addressing a cross-dressing phenomenon in the zarzuela, an aspect that has until now received little attention. Extant zarzuelas from the period 1696–1718 form the core of the dissertation. I explore lamenting traditions in this repertory in relation to contemporary cross-dressing practices, and to contemporary philosophical, literary, gender, and medical discourses. Among the numerous male laments occurring in this repertory, I identify two types: Cupid’s laments, and their allegorical representation of the Spanish monarch and of his struggle for power, and male amorous complaints as a manifestation of philosophical perceptions about love. Finally, discourses of gender inequality are revealed in the analysis of the few female laments appearing in the genre. I suggest that a proliferation of male lamentos during this period is symptomatic of the political tensions felt at court. Moreover, I contend that the male lyrical voice that had long dominated the tradition of amorous suffering found a safe conduit for theatrical and lamenting expression in the female performer. Women’s voices and bodies softened the dangerous overtones of feminization carried in the male lamento, thus allowing the lamenting male to become widely accepted. An examination of the zarzuela and its laments helps bring a rich literary, theatrical, and musical tradition into the mainstream while illuminating an under-explored period in the history of Spanish music. | Ph.D. | gender, women, equality | 5 |
| Adam, Simon | Burstow, Bonnie | Crazy making: The reproduction of psychiatry by nursing education | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2017-06 | This is a study of how psychiatric discourse linguistically and institutionally figures in nursing education in Ontario. Correspondingly, it is a study of ‘mental health’ nursing education in undergraduate nursing programs, specifically, those offered by college-university partnerships. It is likewise an investigation of how psychiatry has come to colonize nursing by way of the nursing academy. A mixed qualitative methodology study, its analysis draws on the author’s experience as a nursing student and faculty member, with data also coming from student and faculty interviews, observation periods, and a number of curriculum and institutional documents. Two primary approaches are employed–critical discourse analysis and institutional ethnography. Critical discourse analysis is used to unearth how the structure and function of language play a role in the reproduction of ‘mental illness.’ The language of nursing mental health literature is examined as a producer of psychiatrically-colonized constitutions of ‘mental health.’ What is demonstrated is how nursing linguistically downloads psychiatric discourse, thereby reproducing an ideologically biomedical framing of ‘the patient.’ With institutional ethnography, the thesis makes visible the operational complex of the relations that comprise the nursing program under study. Beginning in the everyday world, the author traces the institutional processes which embed and maintain a problematic construction of the ‘mentally ill,’ in the process, maintaining a perpetual state of psychiatric ruling. Reinforcing this psychiatric reproduction are ‘disciplinary’ practices–those docility-producing teaching practices which are common to university professional education. These too are examined as an arm of the institution, as inscribers of psychiatric discourse, effectively perpetuating a problematic understanding of ‘mental health’ for nursing. The thesis ends with a discussion of implications for critical thinking and directions for nursing. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Adams, Eric Michael | Schneiderman, David | The Idea of Constitutional Rights and the Transformation of Canadian Constitutional Law, 1930-1960 | Law | 2009-11 | This dissertation argues that the idea of constitutional rights transformed Canadian constitutional law well before the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Specifically, it locates the origins of Canada’s twentieth-century rights revolution in the constitutional thinking of scholars, lawyers, judges, and politicians at mid-century (1930-1960). Drawing on archival documents, personal papers, government reports, parliamentary debates, case law, and legal scholarship, this work traces the constitutional thought and culture that first propelled human rights and fundamental freedoms to the forefront of the Canadian legal imagination. As a work of legal history, it also seeks to revive the dormant spirit of constitutional history that once pervaded the discipline of Canadian constitutional law. The Introduction situates the chapters that follow within the emerging Canadian historiography of rights. Chapter Two traces the origins of Frank Scott’s advocacy for constitutional rights to the newer constitutional law, an approach to constitutional scholarship sparked by the social and political upheavals of the Depression, and the influence of Roscoe Pound’s sociological jurisprudence. Chapter Three explores the varied dimensions of the Second World War’s influence on the nascent idea of Canadian constitutional rights. In particular, the rapid rise of the wartime administrative state produced a rights discourse that tended to reflect the interests of property while ignoring the civil liberties of unpopular minorities. Chapter Four examines the rise of a politics and scholarship of rights in the years immediately following the war. In response to international rights ideals and continuing domestic rights controversies, scholars and lawyers sought to produce a theory of Canadian constitutional law that could accommodate the addition of judicially-enforced individual rights. If not entirely successful, their efforts nonetheless further reoriented the fundamental tenets of Canadian constitutional law. Chapter Five reveals the influence of Canada’s emerging constitutional culture of rights on the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada, particularly Justice Ivan Rand and his conception of an implied bill of rights. Together, these chapters demonstrate the confluence of ideology, circumstance, and personality – the constitutional history – that altered the future of Canadian constitutional law. | SJD | rights, justice | 16 |
| Adamson, Nancey | Katharine, Janzen | Millennial Employees' Expectations of the Workplace: A Case Study of Humber College | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2014-11 | The purpose of this study was to explore and describe whether what the Millennial employees (employees born between January 1, 1981 and December 31, 2000) who participated in the study wanted in the workplace aligned with what is currently offered in the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts Technology (CAAT) system. More specifically, the study examined if the Millennials who currently worked at the CAAT that was the site of this study (Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning), felt the current "terms and conditions" of employment met their needs, and if not, what were their suggestions on changes that might be made to better meet their expectations.I used a convergent parallel mixed methodology research design for this study with the intention to provide Humber leaders with the perspectives of their youngest employees on the current "terms and conditions" of employment and provide recommendations on if and/or how changes could be made to better meet these employees' needs. By including the perspectives from three key sources of information in this study, that is, Millennial employees, Human Resources leaders, and document analysis, the findings provided a deeper understanding of the issues explored.The conclusions and recommendations drawn from this study suggest that there are many opportunities for college leaders to re-examine policies and practices that are currently in place for college employees. Many suggestions and recommendations were made in each of the five main categories measured: Financial Rewards; Recognition; Skill Development; Career Development; and Quality of Work/Life.The study findings may inform policy and practice that will create an environment that is conducive to attracting and retaining the best faculty, support staff and administrators so that the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology can meet the mandate set out for them by the provincial government. | Ph.D. | employment | 8 |
| Adebajo, Sylvia Bolanle | Myers, Ted | Prevalence and Correlates of HIV, Syphilis, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C Infections and Sexual Behaviours of Men who have Sex with Men in Two Cities in Nigeria | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2014-06 | Globally, men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to be disproportionately affected by the HIV pandemic. However, prior to this study, very little was known about the magnitude and factors that heighten MSM's vulnerabilities to HIV and other STIs in Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 1,125 consenting MSM in Lagos and Ibadan recruited through modified respondent driven strategy. Sero-prevalence of HIV, hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV) and syphilis and levels of unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) were determined using data adjusted for network size and unweighted data for the pooled sample. Correlates of HIV, HBV, HCV and UAI were examined using multiple logistic regression analyses. Results revealed relatively young sexually active men who engaged in multiple concurrent sexual relationships with both men and women. More than half of the men self-identified as bisexual, and 44.4% as homosexual. High levels of risky sexual behaviours were demonstrated with over two-thirds of MSM in Ibadan (65.5%) and Lagos (69.7%) reporting UAI with their male partners in the previous 6 months. Correlates of URAI included homosexual identity, older age, lack of social support, and douching. Prevalence of previously undiagnosed HIV infection were four times higher in Lagos 12.7% (95% CI 10.6-15.0), and Ibadan 11.2% (95% CI 5.7-16.2) than the national HIV prevalence among Nigerian men. Prevalence of HBV (10.1% and 18.0%); HCV (2.8% and 4.3%) and current active syphilis (0.03%) infections in Lagos and Ibadan respectively were also high. Correlates of HIV were URAI and UIAI with men and women, condom breakage, homosexual identity, increasing age, employment, sexual activities with non-African white men and internalized homophobia. Bisexual identity, UIAI with male sex partners, and low self-esteem were associated with HBV infection. Correlates of HCV were URAI and reported sex with men who had lower educational status. This study confirms the existence of MSM who engage in risky behaviours with very limited access to appropriate HIV and STI prevention services. | Ph.D. | gender, health | 3, 5 |
| Adefarakan, Elizabeth Temitope | Dei, George Jerry Sefa | Yoruba Indigenous Knowledges in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power and the Politics of Indigenous Spirituality | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2011-06 | This study investigates how Yoruba migrants make meaning of Yoruba Indigenous knowledges in the African Diaspora, specifically within the geopolitical space of dominant Canadian culture. This research is informed by the lived experiences of 16 Africans of Yoruba descent now living in Toronto, Canada, and explores how these first and second generation migrants construct the spiritual and linguistic dimensions of Yoruba Indigenous identities in their everyday lives. While Canada is often imagined as a sanctuary for progressive politics, it nonetheless is also a hegemonic space where inequities continue to shape the social engagements of everyday life. Hence, this dissertation situates the historical and contemporary realities of colonialism and imperialism, by beginning with the premise that people in diasporic Yoruba communities are continuously affected by the complicated interplay of various forms of oppression such as racism, and inequities based on language, gender and religion. This study is situated within a socio–historical and cosmological context to effectively examine colonialism’s impact on Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. Yet, inversely, this study also involves discussion of how these knowledges are utilized as decolonizing tools of navigation, subversion and resistance. The central focus of this research is the articulation of colonial oppression and how it has reconfigured Yoruba Indigenous identities even within a purportedly ‘multicultural’ space. First, the historical dis/continuities of the Yoruba language in Yorubaland are investigated. This strand of the research considers British colonization, and more specifically, the Church Missionary Society’s (CMS) efforts at translating the Bible into Yoruba as pivotal in the colonial project. What kinds of categories does missionary education create that differ from pre-colonial categories of Yoruba Indigenous identity? How are these new identities shaped along lines of race and gender? In other words, what happens when Yoruba cosmology encounters colonialism? The second strand of this research investigates how these historical colonialisms have set the framework for enduring contemporary colonialisms that continue to fracture Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. This dissertation offers insights relevant to diversity and equitable pedagogy through careful consideration of the complicated strategies used by participants in their negotiations of Yoruba identities within a context of social inequity and colonialism. | PhD | equitable, gender | 4, 5 |
| Affifi, Ramsey Rasheed | Bredo, Eric | Educating in a Multispecies World | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2015-11 | The widespread deterioration of our planet's life support system is a global challenge facing humanity. This dissertation is based on the premise that changing course requires fundamentally reconstructing how we think about humans and the rest of nature. If a sustainable course requires that we see ourselves as members of an ever-evolving biotic community, then we will have to abandon ways of thinking and acting that distort a sense of continuity between our species and others, replacing kinship with radical separation. Insofar as education is concerned with human learning processes while considering learning in other species as irrelevant or nonexistent, it institutionalizes and perpetuates attitudes that prevent us from reintegrating back into our web of relations. These attitudes are no longer biologically, philosophically, or ethically warranted. They do not keep up with the extent of our empirical and theoretical progress beyond thinking in terms of metaphysical dualisms. To evolve a better discipline, I claim that we must ecologize education; we must dare to imagine and enact an interspecies pedagogy. In the seven papers that follow, I draw from various philosophical, scientific and pedagogical sources to trace pathways into interspecies pedagogy and I try to overcome some of the ways my culturally-informed biases have blocked me from taking the concept seriously. The papers are diverse but they also overlap, showing the process by which I have worked to develop a theoretical alternative that erases the line between education and biology. As such, this publication fits within the larger "posthumanist" shift occurring variously throughout the university. My partial solutions and explorations are admittedly situated and contextual. However, I hope that they can help those who suffer similar blockages as I do to feel more viscerally that the world around them is responsive, attentive, and worthy of pedagogical consideration, and that the range of human affairs treating the biological world as but scenery set behind the great human story is as miseducative for other species as it is for us, and in need of a swift dismantling. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Afridi, Momina | Bascia, Nina | UNDERSTANDING THE WORK OF FEMALE TEACHERS IN LOW FEE PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2017-11 | While Low Fee Private Schools (LFPSs) and Public Private Partnership (PPPs) initiatives have been widely promoted in various contexts including Pakistan, they have seldom been viewed through the lens of the teacher’s life and work. To understand the work of female teachers in LFPSs, I apply a conceptual framework that demonstrates the interconnectedness of teachers’ career and working conditions, gender and teacher labour markets in looking at the work of teachers. Specifically I ask, how female teachers perceive and experience their careers, working conditions and gendered labour in LFPSs with regards to the occupational labour market for teachers in Punjab, Pakistan. My qualitative study is based on interviews and focus group discussions with teachers and principals in LFPSs located in Punjab. In addition, NGO fieldworkers and civil society members who work on education were also interviewed to gain a better understanding of the context. Findings from my study point to how haphazard recruitment, lack of career paths and the diminishing social image and status of teachers negatively affect the work and motivation of female teachers in LFPSs in Punjab. A crucial argument that emerges from my study is that while teachers in LFPS themselves are willing to learn and improve their performance, they do not have enough opportunities for in-service training in challenging areas such as multi-grade teaching, subject specialisation, changing syllabus and dealing with students who have very poor learning levels. While for young, single and female teachers a major reason for leaving employment in LFPSs was their inability to work after getting married, many teachers argued that a low salary and tough working conditions, often caused women to move to other jobs. The study affirms the observation that female teachers in LFPS are paid lower wages and are increasingly being hired in private schools due to their gender. Women in LFPSs face much different working conditions, management attitudes and salary as compared to male teachers. Findings show that women’s work in LFPSs teaching in Pakistan takes place in a social, economic and political environment that constrains women’s labour force participation. | Ph.D. | educat, gender, women, employment, labour, worker, wage | 4, 5, 2008 |
| Agha Beigi, Hossein | Christopoulos, Constantin||Sullivan, Tim | Retrofit of Soft Storey Buildings Using Gapped Inclined Brace Systems | Civil Engineering | 2014 | Although a soft storey mechanism is generally undesirable for the seismic response of building structures, it could provide potential benefits due to the isolating effect it produces. This thesis proposes a retrofit strategy for buildings that are expected to develop soft storey mechanisms, taking advantage of the positive aspects of the soft storey response while mitigating the negative ones. After a review of traditional considerations that are made for soft storey structures, the work starts by comparing the behaviour of an RC frame building with two infill configurations; in the first configuration, it is assumed that masonry infills are distributed over all storeys uniformly, while in the next step and in order to consider soft storey effects, it is assumed that masonry infills are not present at the ground storey. Results of incremental dynamic analyses indicate that structures with uniform infill are less likely to collapse. However, if the displacement demands at the first level of soft storeys could be sustained, their overall performance would be significantly improved. Following this initial study, a gapped inclined brace (GIB) system is proposed with the aim of significantly reducing the likelihood of collapse whilst ensuring that the seismic damage concentrates at this single level, protecting the rest of the structure located above. The GIB system achieves these aims by reducing P-Delta effects at the first floor of soft storey buildings without significantly increasing their lateral resistance. The mechanics of the proposed system are defined and a systematic design procedure is explained and illustrated. The theoretical relations that are derived for GIB systems are verified through numerical analyses. Results of cyclic static and incremental dynamic analyses demonstrate that the overall seismic performance of soft storey buildings retrofitted using a GIB system is greatly improved, indicating that the GIB system produces an efficient and intelligent soft storey mechanism at the first level of such buildings, which provides several advantages over conventional approaches. The last part of the thesis discusses various uncertainties that remain about the potential of GIB systems, including the best likely connection details for GIB systems, which should be investigated as part of future research. | Ph.D. | buildings | 9 |
| Agou, Shoroog | Locker, David ||Tompson, Bryan ||Streiner, David | Oral Health Related Quality of Life Outcomes of Orthodontics in Children | Dentistry | 2009-11 | Contemporary conceptual models of health emphasize the importance of patient-based outcomes and recognize the complexity involved in their assessment. Various health conditions, personal, social, and environmental factors, are all thought to contribute to individual’s quality of life. However, the impact of orthodontic treatment on Oral Health-related Quality of Life (OH-QOL) outcomes in children has not yet been systematically studied. Hence, this research was planned to assess the effect orthodontic treatment has on pediatric OH-QOL outcomes. Further, the important moderational role of children’s psychological assets on OH-QOL reports is explored. Following completion of a preliminary study to confirm the psychometric properties of the Child Perception Questionnaire (CPQl1-14), the current two-phase study was undertaken. This consisted of a cross-sectional study examining the relationship among Self-Esteem (SE), malocclusion, and OH-QOL, and a longitudinal study examining the influence of orthodontics and children’s Psychological Wellbeing (PWB) on OH-QOL reports. This PhD dissertation is presented in the “Publishable Style”. The journals which hold the copyrights for the papers published from this thesis have given permission for the reproduction of the text and figures for this dissertation. The preliminary data confirmed that the CPQ11-14 is sensitive to change when used with children receiving orthodontic treatment. Our cross-sectional findings indicated that the impact of malocclusion on OH-QOL is substantial in children with low SE and identified SE as a salient determinant of OH-QOL in children seeking orthodontic treatment. Longitudinal data, on the other hand, detected significant improvement of OH-QOL outcomes after orthodontic treatment. As postulated, these improvements were most evident for the social and emotional domains of OH-QOL. However, covariate analysis emphasized the important role psychological factors play in moderating OH-QOL reports, as children with better PWB were more likely to report better OH-QOL regardless of their orthodontic treatment status. These results substantiate the validity of contemporary models of patient-based outcomes linking biological, personal, social, and environmental factors. Researchers and clinicians are encouraged to adopt this forward thinking approach when dealing with children with oro-facial conditions. Further studies with larger samples and longer follow-ups would be of value to expand on these findings. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Agyepong, Rosina | Dei, George Jerry Sefa | Black Focused Schools in Toronto: What do African-Canadian Parents Say? | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2010-11 | Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine how parents of African descent understand the African-centered school concept as an alternative education to the mainstream public school in Toronto. While we cannot ignore the success stories of some Black students in the school system, the reality remains that the academic performance of some shows a downward trend. Hence, concerned educators and members of the African-Canadian community suggest the need for the establishment of a Black focused or African-centered school as an alternative to the mainstream public school. This will allow students to learn more effectively because they are culturally grounded and will be able to link issues of individual or group identities with what goes on at school. This qualitative research relied principally on in-depth interviews with twenty African-Canadian parents who have children in the mainstream public schools in Toronto. It assumes that parents are important stakeholders in their children’s education so their views on problems and the need for an alternative form of schooling have significant implications for the academic performance of Black youth. The data from my study and available literature make it evident that despite the introduction of African heritage and multicultural programs and anti-racist education, profound problems still exist for Black youth in the mainstream public schools. The findings indicate that out of twenty, a majority of seventeen African-Canadian parents support the establishment of African-centered schools as an alternative to the mainstream public school. All participants interviewed agree that discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping in mainstream public schools are major problems for their children. The parents’ narratives show that the establishment of an African-centered school as an alternative to the mainstream public school is a way to combat the discrimination and prejudice Black youth encounter at school. The parents believe Black focused schools should be a major preoccupation of educational personnel, school boards and policy makers. Finally the implications of establishing an African-centered school to address the needs of Black youth and directions for future research are discussed. | PhD | educat | 4 |
| Aharonson, Barak Simcha | Silverman, Brian S. | The Technological Landscape: Competition and Opportunity | Management | 2008-11 | Technological position is a dimension along which organizations can either differentiate from or mimic the behavior of other organizations in the technological landscape. This paper is aimed at providing empirical evidence of the specific ways in which an organization’s technological position choice is impacted by the tension that arises from technological co-location; the information available to the focal firm; and the focal firm’s usage of such information. In this dissertation I examine the factors influencing technological agglomerations in technological positions in the technological landscape. I further examine how the organization’s experience impacts its strategic positioning choice while facing the tradeoff between the expected derivatives of co-location - opportunities and competition. I argue and find that an organization strategically positions itself in the technological landscape based not only on the information it has gathered on its technological environment but also using its own experience and information. Further, my findings show that the organization’s technological positioning choice reflects the tension between opportunity and competition, which questions the notion of isomorphism. | PhD | innovation, industr | 9 |
| Ahmed, Abdelsalam E | Zu, Jean | Design, Modelling and Analysis of Triboelectric Nanogenerators | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2018-06 | In today’s world, energy storage has become a critical issue in energy generation and harvesting technologies. As a result, research efforts in the sustainable energy discipline have consistently focused on the generation of energy from environmentally-friendly sources. Recently, a fundamentally new technology, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), has been demonstrated for its unique merits that include considerable output power, high efficiency, and cost-effective materials. There is a significant body of research focusing on designing TENG; however, there are no guidelines for developing improved TENG designs and structures. To address this challenge, this work introduces TENG design guidelines experimental and computational designs. Furthermore, this dissertation has two primary objectives: (1) to develop accurate 3D multi-physics finite element model (FEA) and (2) to perform a detailed techno-economic life cycle assessment. The developed FEA is used to determine appropriate TENG geometries offering an optimal efficiency for such a design. Experimentally, different case studies are developed for water wave, and wind energy harvesting. Regarding water wave energy, a duck-shaped TENG is proposed to achieve an instantaneous output power up to 1.366 W.m-2. As for wind energy, TENG and Darrieus conventional turbines are compared, with results predicting the unique advantages offered by TENG at low rotation speed. Moreover, inspired by the hummingbird-wing structure, we proposed a TENG design that attained 1.5 W m-2 peak electrical output. In addition, an 11 life cycle environmental metrics are determined. The environmental impact of the selected TENGs is lower compared to traditional photovoltaics technologies. Moreover, The Levelized Cost of Electricity of selected TENGs is also very sensitive to the module efficiency and is expected to be lower than that of other energy technologies if the modules’ efficiencies and lifetimes exceed 25% and 15 years, respectively. | Ph.D. | water, environment, wind, energy | 6, 7, 13 |
| AHMED, KHALID | Teichman, Judith | The Impact of Geopolitical Interests on Peace Negotiations: A Critical Analysis of the Role of Third-Party Mediation in the Horn of Africa – The Case of Sudan | Political Science | 2018-11 | As a greater number of sub-national groups demand secession, the theory of mediation finds itself without concrete principles with which to respond. This research endeavors to introduce a critical theory discourse in mediation literature on the role of superpower intervention. I explore two shortcomings in mediation literature. First, unlike critiques available elsewhere, superpower participation in peace mediation is not considered a form of superpower hegemony. My research suggests that superpowers utilize mediation to serve their interests while ostensibly appearing to be ‘assisting’ the locals, out of humanitarian impulse, to restore ‘peace’ and ‘prosperity’. Second, despite the intricate nature of secessionist wars, they are not accorded appropriate consideration. In secessionist wars, separatist groups actively enlist the support of superpowers sympathetic to their cause. This research is guided by two questions: does mediation literature address how superpowers mediate secessionist conflicts in which they are sympathetic to the cause of separatist groups? And, if such analysis exists, does it attempt to deconstruct critically how superpowers enlist regional and local allies to influence the outcome of negotiations in favour of their own interests in secession? Using two case studies in Sudan, my findings illustrate that the negative role of superpower hegemony in mediation processes has been neglected and depoliticized in mediation literature. I argue that mediation literature should not rely on superpower leverage to mediate an end to secessionist wars ― embodied in the form of state-led Track I diplomacy processes ― since it only provides ready-made resolutions and legitimizes foreign intervention and exploitation. Therefore, I further argue that for mediation theory to be more relevant and useful in fostering an indigenous end to secessionist wars they are better off utilizing non-state actors ― as in the form of Track II diplomacy ― to mediate secessionist wars. Non-state actors, void of state interests, have the capacity to facilitate greater inter-elite negotiations, which, in turn, will strengthen local ownership of peace processes and foster consensus on indigenous resolutions. | Ph.D. | peace | 16 |
| Ahmed, Mavra | L'Abbe, Mary R | Assessments of Dietary Intakes of Canadian Armed Forces Consuming Field Rations | Nutritional Sciences | 2017-11 | Military personnel frequently encounter metabolically challenging training or deployment conditions and are known to not eat enough during these field operations. Such conditions also make it challenging to collect accurate dietary intake data using traditional dietary assessment methods. The specific objectives of this thesis were to assess energy and nutrient intakes of a convenience sample of CAF personnel consuming: 1a) home diets and; 1b) ad libitum field rations at home; 2) ad libitum field rations under different temperature conditions with strenuous activities vs. sedentary in a laboratory setting; and 3) field rations during a 5-day winter weather field exercise. Additionally, 4) a mobile tablet application for dietary assessment of military personnel was evaluated. Energy intakes were similar between home diets and from ad libitum consumption of field rations at home but CAF participantsâ had less than recommended intakes of some micronutrients. In a temperature and humidity-controlled chamber with simulated military-type tasks, energy intakes were similar between treatments of varying temperatures with strenuous physical activity in comparison with the sedentary treatment. Energy consumption did not increase during the rest of the day upon completion of the treatments. During the winter weather field exercise, participants had insufficient energy intakes in relation to their measured energy expenditures, resulting in a significant weight loss. An electronic tablet application was found to be a valid method of assessing dietary intakes from field rations. Overall, this thesis characterized home diets of a sample of CAF personnel and demonstrated that reduced energy intake is not due to ration palatability, time to prepare or eat the food in an acute setting. Using the best available dietary assessment methodologies, this thesis demonstrated that energy intakes did not increase in harsh environmental temperatures with strenuous physical activities even with ample time to eat and food prepared on request and showed that during a winter weather field exercise, participants exhibited â voluntary anorexiaâ (under-consumption of food) and weight loss, which has implications for potential impairments in performance and health of CAF personnel during longer duration deployments. Additionally, the use of mobile technology enables accurate dietary intake assessments of military personnel. | Ph.D. | food | 2 |
| Airia, Parisa | Eyssen, Gail | From Education to Tumour Characteristics in Colorectal Cancer: An Analysis of the Pathways. | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2013-11 | Background: Genetic and environmental factors have been associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) risk. However, their association with prognosis has been less studied. Methods: Path analysis was employed to examine causal pathways from education to environmental (diet, alcohol, smoking, physical activity) and personal factors (screening), and then to obesity and ultimately to tumour characteristics (stage, grade, microsatellite instability (MSI), and site) that are associated with CRC prognosis. Data came from the Ontario Familial Colon Cancer Registry. Pathways were evaluated for effect modification by sex and two indicators of CRC genetic susceptibility (Bethesda criteria and newly identified familial cancer clusters). Results: Four food patterns (healthy foods, high-fat foods, sweet and processed foods, and oriental foods) and four nutrient patterns (total macronutrient, fat vs. carbohydrate, and micronutrients from supplements and from foods) were identified. Education was associated positively with healthy lifestyle factors (e.g. healthy foods factor) and negatively with unhealthy factors (e.g. smoking). As expected, high body mass index (BMI) was associated with lower physical activity and higher fat vs. carbohydrate factor. Unexpectedly, BMI was positively associated with the healthy foods factor among Bethesda positive patients and men. An association between education and BMI was mediated by the healthy foods factor and by physical activity. Important poor prognostic factors, higher grade and stage, were associated with smoking and not being screened. However, unexpected associations included a positive association of physical activity with tumour grade among Bethesda positive patients and a positive association of healthy foods with stage among Bethesda negative patients. Patients with right-sided tumours were more likely to receive micronutrients from supplements, and screening and less likely to smoke, and for men, to have a high BMI, high fat diet and healthy food diet. Conclusion: Some unhealthy lifestyle factors, such as smoking and a high fat food dietary pattern, are associated with adverse CRC tumour characteristics and so may affect the prognosis. Family history may modify some associations though the findings require independent confirmation. | PhD | food, health | 2, 3 |
| Aitken, Madison | Martinussen, Rhonda | School-based Screening for Mental Health Difficulties in Primary Grade Children: Psychometrics, Incremental Validity, and Patterns of Co-occurring Difficulties | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2016-11 | The demand for childrenâ s mental health services in Ontario exceeds available resources and, as a result, alternative approaches such as delivering mental health services in the school system may be needed. Within the school system, universal screening has been recommended as a method of identifying mental health difficulties early and beginning to provide intervention. If schools are to implement such screening programs, they must select appropriate screening measures and informants and be prepared to meet the needs of the children identified as at-risk. This process is complicated by high rates of co-occurrence among mental health difficulties, social and academic difficulties. The overall goal of this dissertation is to contribute to knowledge in the area of school-based mental health screening in terms of instruments, informants and the predominant patterns of co-occurring difficulties in elementary school children. Three studies will be presented, all of which involve the same community sample of 501 children in Grades 1 to 3. In the first study, confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the construct validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), a potentially useful screening measure that has received little research attention in Canada. The results support the five-factor structure of parent and teacher SDQ ratings. Adequate internal consistency and inter-rater agreement were also found. The second study used negative binomial regression to test the hypothesis that parent ratings of symptoms as well as parent and teacher ratings of impairment contribute to more accurate screening than teacher symptom ratings alone. The results suggest that the most useful combination of screening data includes teacher symptom and impairment ratings and parent impairment ratings. The third study used latent class analysis to identify patterns of co-occurrence among some of the most common childhood difficulties: internalizing, externalizing, inattention/hyperactivity, social, and reading difficulties. The results indicate that a significant number of non-referred elementary school children experience difficulties in two or more important aspects of functioning. Collectively, these findings provide an important foundation that may guide future research on and implementation of school-based mental health screening in terms of selecting measures and informants and anticipating potential patterns of need in young children. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Ajandi, Jennifer | Eichler, Margrit | Overcoming Barriers and Finding Strengths: The Lives of Single Mother Students in University | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2011-06 | The impetus for this study came from my own history of being a single mother while completing my undergraduate degree and the struggles that entailed. The research uncovers both the barriers and facilitators experienced by single mothers in undergraduate programs in a Canadian context and utilizes a framework of access and equity in education. The co-participants belonged to diverse social and political identities in terms of age, race and ethnicity, sexuality, (dis)ability, and countries of birth. All the women attended universities in Southern Ontario. Twenty-five women agreed to be interviewed in either a group or individual interview. Co-participants were encouraged to contribute to the design and analysis of the study wherever possible. Previous research based in the United States conceptualized single mother students as social assistance recipients and explored their difficulties within this context. This study suggests using a wider lens to include other experiences identified by co-participants and the literature review. The study locates barriers both within the university as well as in the larger society such as interpersonal violence, stress, financial insecurity, racism and other forms of discrimination. However, it also identifies supports and strengths single mothers encountered such as family, friends, children as motivation, professors, on-campus supports, and critical pedagogy, all of which were largely missing from previous research. Many women challenged the often pathologizing dominant discourse and instead described single motherhood as empowering, independent, and liberating as compared to being a part of a traditional nuclear family. Co-participants also identified feeling isolated, discussions around which engendered a social group outside of the research project. By creating awareness of the needs of diverse single mother students, this project aims to disrupt the still-prevalent notion of the “traditional student” and accompanying policies and practices in institutions of education and the wider community. While much has been documented in Canada about the need for access, equity, and inclusive schooling, single mothers in particular have not been a main focus and included among other intersections of identity. The findings from this study address this gap and contribute to the literature. | PhD | educat, inclusive, gender, women | 4, 5 |
| Ajodhia-Andrews, Amanda Devi | Gérin-Lajoie, Diane | Bridging Understandings of Differences, Learning and Inclusion: Voices of Minoritized Students | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2013-11 | Many Canadian children from minority status groups experience long-term academic complexities, influencing their sense of school belonging and engagement (Willms, 2003; Willms & Flanagan, 2007). Research demonstrates children with intersecting differences of race, ethnicity, language, and disability, and those in their middle years (10-13 years old), undergo heightened academic challenges (Blanchett, Klingner, & Harry, 2009; Cobbold, 2005). Within Toronto, one of the most diverse Canadian cities, this study explores the narratives of 6 middle years children with intersecting differences of race, ethnicity, language, and disabilities. The narratives highlight participants’ understandings of differences, learning, and inclusion. Specifically, what are marginalized children’s personal schooling experiences, and how may these insights support inclusive learning, teaching, and sense of belonging? Underpinned by conceptual lenses of (a) critical theory, from which stems critical pedagogy and critical multicultural education, and (b) the “new sociology of childhood” (Greene & Hogan, 2005), which includes social constructivist and participatory frames, this study employed qualitative narrative and critical discourse analysis research methods throughout 7 research sessions over a 4 month period. Accessing children’s multiple views, data collection included a “mosaic” (Clark & Moss, 2001) multi-method approach, such as semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions, writing activities, imaginative story games, photography, and drawings. The children’s narratives are re-presented as portrait narrative summaries within this paper. Surfacing findings include two predominant themes: (a) Participants’ conceptualizations of differences, race, ethnicity, language, culture, disability, and autism. Participants’ views relate to theories of denying differences, colour blindness, White discourse, and Othering; and (b) Interconnecting factors of inclusive and exclusive elements contributing to participants’ overall sense of school belonging. Additionally this theme highlights matters of meritocracy, individualization, and the “good” student. Underscoring both themes are notions of normalcy, and deficit and deficient-based discourses. Inviting student voice into educational conversations and research processes, this study demonstrates the importance of listening to voices of children with intersecting differences, as they may adeptly advance areas of inclusion and diversity. | PhD | cities, inclusive, educat | 4, 11 |
| Akbari, Saidal | Nurul Habib, Khandker M | Land-use and Transportation Interactions through the Lenses of Two-Worker Households, Rising Commuting Costs and Transit-Oriented Development | Civil Engineering | 2018-06 | Integrated land-use and transportation planning is critical for dealing with the challenges of urbanization and for ensuring the social, economic and environmental sustainability of our cities. Effective planning requires a proper understanding of land-use and transportation interactions. To improve this understanding, the research conducted in this dissertation includes empirical studies to examine interactions in the contexts of two-worker households, rising commuting costs and transit-oriented development. First, econometric models are developed to examine the relationship between factors related to the transportation network and the land-use configuration of two-worker households. Geometrical variables are utilized as descriptors of the land-use configuration and are used to draw relationships with commuting modal accessibility and commuting trade-offs. Second, discrete choice models are developed to examine household choices concerning land-use configuration in the event of significant increases in commuting costs. A discrete choice model is also developed to examine the direction of home location choice relative to the workplace. Framing the model in this manner enables the identification of factors that may contribute to urban sprawl. Third, empirical models are developed to examine travel behaviour in the context of transit-oriented development. Trip generation models for rail trips with walk access/egress are developed to identify the influence of station-level attributes and characteristics of the surrounding environment. The Living Near Transit survey is then designed to collect disaggregate household-level data from households who reside within a walking catchment area of GO Transit rail stations. The collected data is used to develop a behavioural model that identifies specific demographic factors and transit-oriented development characteristics that influence mode choices. The empirical studies in this dissertation contribute to the existing body of literature by revealing new findings of land-use and transportation interactions in the three noted contexts and have corresponding policy implications. | Ph.D. | cities, urban, environment | 11, 13 |
| AKENA, Adyanga Francis | Wane, Nathani Njoki | Integrating African Indigenous Science into the Faculties of Higher Education Curriculum in Uganda | Humanities, Social Sciences and Social Justice Education | 2014-06 | This study examines African Indigenous Science (AIS) in higher education in Uganda. To achieve this, I use anticolonial theory and Indigenous knowledge discursive frameworks to situate the subjugation of Indigenous science from the education system within a colonial historical context. These theories allow for a critical examination of the intersection of power relations rooted in the politics of knowledge production, validation, and dissemination, and how this process has become a systemic and complex method of subjugating one knowledge system over the other. I also employ qualitative and autoethnographic research methodologies. Using a qualitative research method, I interviewed 10 students and 10 professors from two universities in Uganda. My research was guided by the following key questions: What is African Indigenous Science? What methodology would help us to indigenize science education in Uganda? How can we work with Indigenous knowledge and anticolonial theoretical discursive frameworks to understand and challenge the dominance of Eurocentric knowledge in mainstream education?My research findings revealed that AIS can be defined in multiple ways, in other words, there is no universal definition of AIS. However, there were some common elements that my participants talked about such as: (a) knowledge by Indigenous communities developed over a long period of time through a trial and error approach to respond to the social, economic and political challenges of their society. The science practices are generational and synergistic with other disciplines such as history, spirituality, sociology, anthropology, geography, and trade among others, (b) a cumulative practice of the use, interactions with and of biotic and abiotic organism in everyday life for the continued existence of a community in its' totality. The research findings also indicate that Indigenous science is largely lacking from Uganda's education curriculum because of the influence of colonial and post-colonial education. Graduates of the colonial education system who are manning education in the country have themselves come to disdain Indigenous knowledge. The major findings from the study were: 1) participants' articulation of Indigenous science; 2) influence of organized religion on African Indigenous Science; 3) dominance of professors' foreign experiences in determining curriculum content; 4) protection of intellectual property rights for Indigenous science; and 5) collaborative research between Indigenous and Western scholars to enhance attitude change toward Indigenous science. | Ph.D. | rights, inclusive | 4, 16 |
| Akers, Joshua | Hackworth, Jason | Decline Industry: The Market Production of Detroit | Geography | 2013-11 | Declining cities are active sites of capital accumulation. Spaces of decline mark a shift in accumulation strategies rather than a withdrawal of capital. These practices are extended through the deployment of law and policy that privilege private markets and embed market logics in urban governance. The production of urban decline is deepened and extended in the relationship of capital and the state through law and policy. Fundamental to these activities is a conception of private property as the driving force in creating stability and growth within urban areas. The ideological power invested and manifested in private property has driven many of the policy responses to urban decline over the past two decades. The centering of private property as the foundation of urban growth generates policy approaches that appear incapable of addressing the deepening social inequalities of urban life and the uneven development of cities in North America. Declining cities are frequent sites of market-based intervention, yet the outcomes of policies that have entrenched and deepened decline are attributed to the absence or withdrawal of capital rather than the active practices of accumulation. The development and deployment of laws and policies that conceptualize property as merely a stabilizing force, obscures the practices of property, and allow destructive forces of speculative and predatory investment to persist and expand. This work identifies shifting accumulation strategies in spaces of decline. It is a study of activity rather than absence or loss. This allows three interventions in urbanization more broadly and declining cities specifically. First, it integrates declining cities into broader discussions on urbanization and neoliberalization. Second, by exploring declining cities as active sites, the cases both unsettle and expand current understandings of disinvestment, the reach of financialization, and the sites targeted for policy development and transfer. Finally, given the current trajectory of urban austerity, the downloading of crisis to the local level, spaces of decline demonstrate possible trajectories and outcomes as austerity is an already ongoing process in these cities. It also demonstrates how these policies and practice are multi-directional and multi-scalar. | PhD | cities, urban, production, governance | 11, 12, 16 |
| Akhavan, Tina | Anderson, G. Harvey | The Effect of Whey Protein on Short-term Food Intake and Post-meal Glycemic Regulation in Young Adults | Nutritional Sciences | 2012-06 | The hypothesis that consumption of whey protein (WP) prior to a meal suppresses short-term food intake and reduces post-meal glycemia by insulin-dependent and -independent mechanisms in healthy young adults was explored in three studies. Study one investigated the effect of solid vs. liquid forms of WP (50 g) and sucrose (75 g) on food intake at 1 h. Whey protein, whether in solid or liquid form, suppressed food intake more than sucrose. Study two examined the effect of WP (10-40 g) consumed 30 min prior to a meal on food intake, and pre- and post-meal blood concentrations of glucose and insulin. Whey protein reduced food intake and post-meal glycemia in a dose-dependent manner without increased blood insulin concentrations. In the third study, glycemic control after WP was compared with glucose, at doses of 10 and 20 g. Both pre-meal WP and glucose consumption reduced post-meal glycemia similarly. However, WP resulted in lower pre-meal blood glucose and delayed gastric emptying, lower pre-and post-meal and overall insulin secretion and concentrations and higher GLP-1 and PYY concentrations compared with glucose. Thus, the results of this research support the hypothesis that consumption of WP prior to a meal suppresses short-term food intake and reduces post-meal glycemia by insulin-dependent and -independent mechanisms in healthy young adults. | PhD | food | 2 |
| Akhtar, Umme Salma | Evans, Greg J||Scott, Jeremy A | In vitro Toxicological Study of Particulate Matter and the Relationship with Physicochemical Properties of Particles | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2015-06 | Numerous epidemiological and toxicological studies have reported substantial evidence linking airborne particulate matter (PM) exposure to adverse health effects. PM-initiated oxidative stress at the cellular level is considered a potential mechanism contributing the pathogenesis of cardiopulmonary diseases. However, there remain major gaps in knowledge about the relationship between toxicity and the physicochemical properties of PM. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of different source-related and size-fractionated ambient PM on cellular responses to identify relevant physicochemical properties (e.g., size, composition, and redox activity) of particles that could be responsible for the effects. Another objective was to evaluate whether progressive oxidative stress-induced cellular responses (i.e., activation of antioxidant defence at lower level of oxidative stress, followed by inflammatory response, and ultimately cell death as the stress level increases) represent a potential biological mechanism affecting cells in all size fractions. For this purpose, different source-related Standard Reference Materials (industrial, urban, and diesel PM), and size-fractionated ambient coarse, fine, and ultrafine PM (collected from Toronto, Canada) were tested. A549 cells were exposed to different PM doses for certain duration. After exposure, the cells were analyzed for different biological responses and the responses were then compared with available physicochemical properties of the PM. This study demonstrated that exposure to PM can initiate mass-dependent antioxidant, proinflammatory, and cytotoxic responses. Among the different source and size-related PM, transition metal-enriched industrial and coarse PM exhibited the greatest cytotoxic effect, whereas organic compound-enriched ultrafine PM caused significant induction of antioxidant defence. Correlation analyses with chemical constituents suggested transition metals and organic compounds were associated with the observed biological responses. However, the observed biological responses could not be explained by particle size or composition alone. Both of these properties should be considered when explaining the observed PM toxicity. This study also showed that ultrafine PM initiated the hypothesized progressive biological responses, whereas different biological pathways might be involved in coarse and fine PM. Overall, this study demonstrated that the cellular responses varied substantially after in vitro exposure to PM from different sources and ultrafine PM could be as potent as coarse and fine PM. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Akl, Ahmad | Mihailidis, Alex | Automatic Detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults Using Unobtrusive Sensing Technologies | Biomedical Engineering | 2016-06 | The public health implications of growing numbers of older adults at risk for dementia place pressure on identifying dementia at its earliest stages so as to develop proactive management plans. However, this capability of early detection is very challenging with the contemporary detection process in the form of conventional clinician visits, which are typically not sensitive to detecting mild cognitive or functional decline. Fortunately, some studies have documented that changes in motor capabilities precede and may be indicative of cognitive impairment. A major motivation for this thesis was: can we utilize changes in motor capabilities and activity patterns to automatically predict the onset of dementia in older adults through continuous monitoring using unobtrusive sensors? Many studies have demonstrated that the prodromal dementia phase commonly identified as mild cognitive impairment is an important target for this early detection of impending dementia amenable to treatment. Consequently, in this thesis we explored different approaches for the automatic detection of mild cognitive impairment using unobtrusive sensing technologies. We started off by exploring the feasibility of detecting mild cognitive impairment in older adults using a number of predefined measures associated with their in-home walking speed. We were able to achieve this goal with an area under the ROC curve and an area under the precision-recall curve of 0.97 and 0.93, respectively, using a time frame of 24 weeks. We were also very interested in exploring the feasibility of detecting mild cognitive impairment in older adults using changes in their activity patterns. We used inhomogeneous Poisson processes to build generalized linear models of older adults' activity that would model their presence in different rooms throughout the day. Using these models, we extracted very interesting insights and visualized significant changes in older adults' activity patterns as they started experiencing cognitive impairment. Finally, we devised a method for automatic detection of mild cognitive impairment using changes in older adults' activity models, and we achieved this goal with an F0.5 score of 85.6 percent. We also investigated the two subtypes of mild cognitive impairment, namely the amnestic and the non-amnestic subtypes, and made very interesting observations. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Akram, Saadia | Moodley, Roy | A Qualitative Study of the Process of Acculturation and Coping for South Asian Muslim Immigrants Living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2012-06 | The present study explores the nature of coping mechanisms among South Asian Muslim immigrants living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who have been living in Canada between three to five years and experienced acculturation challenges and depression. Thirteen immigrants (seven females and six males) were interviewed to share their stories of personal experiences of settlement and acculturation in Canada. These interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory approach to develop themes and sub-themes to understand and interpret the data. The findings reveal that the research participants experienced a number of acculturation challenges (feeling different, feeling excluded, disruption in the family and material differences) which led to depression. During the course of their depression participants experienced certain events which became turning points in their lives, subsequently motivating them to change the way in which they live. They sought out particular kinds of support and coping mechanisms which helped them to settle, integrate and belong to the Canadian culture. The midlevel grounded theory that has emerged from participants’ responses is discussed. Recommendations are made to inform mental health professionals to incorporate these coping mechanisms in delivering culturally sensitive services to the target population. Study implications for theory, psychotherapy, counselling and other mental health practices and future research in the area of settlement and adaption of newcomers in Canada are discussed. | EDD | health | 3 |
| Akrong, Alberta O. | Akrong, Alberta O.||Wane, Njoki N. | Non-Formal Literacy Education For Rural Women's Empowerment in Ghana: A Micro Level Analysis | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2014-11 | Much as knowledge is rationally perceived as power with ability to construct identity, and facilitate social interaction, most women in rural areas in Ghana are unable to read or write in a local language as they missed out on schooling for socio-cultural and structural reasons. Yet, literacy is discounted as an element of personal transformation as well as a skill to possibly and cogently bridge the gender-parity gap in education through empowerment projects. The reason being; non-formal education programmes which engender acquisition of literacy skills is disparaged as an alternative form of learning in education planning at the detriment of marginalized populations and women in particular. But how can one read the world without the word (Freire Macedo, 1987)? This study primarily identifies the linkage between literacy and women's empowerment; interrogates the prognosis between literacy and personal transformation; and examines the methods employed by Non Formal Education Division to systematise learning to achieve this goal in Ghana. It is an empirical qualitative multi-sited research conducted in four rural locations in Accra to critically investigate how non-formal education is represented in social development. The study's analytical framework is set within a feminist methodology and grounded theory, and draws on transformative learning Mezirow (2000) and empowerment Stromquist (1995) as conceptual frameworks to explore the epistemology and subjective change respectively. The findings report: interest in literacy is dynamic but implicates government indifference with respect to non-formal education as it identifies, that instable governance, funding and state bureaucracy encumber institution and programme effectiveness and this deprive citizens their right to education. Learner interest has equally shifted from gender-role reinforcement literacy to that of empowered literacy to include: income-generating and employable skills, multi-language learning, women's co-operative formation, and micro credit opportunities. The study concludes with a five-frame proposal for NFED institutional strengthening for effective governance, public engagement and fundraising towards sustainable literacy for development. | Ph.D. | educat, gender, women, rural, institution, governance | 4, 5, 11, 16 |
| Akseer, Nadia | Bhutta, Zulfiqar A | Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition in Afghanistan | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2018-11 | Afghanistan is an impoverished conflict-prone nation with some of the worst documented maternal and child health and survival indicators worldwide. Entering a period of relative stability after the 2001 US-led upheaval of Taliban governance, Afghanistan had, for the first time in decades, an opportunity for redevelopment and growth. Government, along with development partners, funders, civil society, NGOs and the global community, came together to rapidly expand basic infrastructure, strengthen the health care system, and to scale-up health services throughout the overwhelmingly rural population. This dissertation’s aim was to systematically document progress and determinants of maternal and child health intervention utilization and nutrition during the 2001 to 2014 time period, and to identify remaining geographical and socioeconomic inequalities. First, I examine determinants of improvements in two critical markers of maternal and newborn health and survival (skilled birth attendance and institutional deliveries) from 2003 to 2011 using nationally-representative survey data. Next, a thorough assessment of the socioeconomic and regional inequalities in essential reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) interventions in Afghanistan is presented. Finally, I conduct modeling exercises of the basic, underlying and immediate determinants of undernutrition among children ( | Ph.D. | governance, institution, rural, infrastructure, health, nutrition. Socioeconomic | 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 16 |
| Akseer, Spogmai | Magnusson, Jamie-Lynn | Learning in a Militarized Context: Exploring Afghan Women’s Experiences of Higher Education in ‘Post-Conflict’ Afghanistan | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2015-11 | This study examines the repercussions of the war on terror and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, on the daily (gendered) life experiences of Afghan women. I argue that such wars are markers of the shifts in global capitalist accumulation processes, from exporting ‘goods’ to the Global South, to now exporting capitalism. Specifically, the war on terror is the latest manifestation of monopoly finance capitalism, which leverages wars and insecurity in the Global South as lucrative sites for accumulating profits and (re)investments. Democratic ideals provide a ‘moral’ justification for mass militarism, human rights violations, torture and erosion of existing social and economic inequalities. Notions of freedom, equality or classlessness, which are important objectives of formal democracy, as well, colonialist and racist ideologies of Others have become effective mechanisms for capitalism to sustain and reproduce capitalist class relations. Education is an important site for socializing citizens toward accepting and participating as human capital in monopoly finance capitalism. Through the World Bank, higher education reforms in Afghanistan are endorsing neoliberal policies, even as these policies continue to contradict and exacerbate existing inequalities. Specifically, female education has become a key strategy in continued militarization and occupation in the country. In this study, I examine the contradictory ways in which female university students navigate through an increasingly militarized, violent and patriarchal terrain. Guided by a transnational feminist approach and a dialectical historical materialist framework, 19 female university students from 5 public and private universities were interviewed in Afghanistan. Findings suggest that the university is a contradictory site where participants mobilize new and old strategies for addressing gendered constraints in their lives, while simultaneously creating new ones. The implications of these findings suggest a need for extensive institutional and ideological support for women’s learning, and also improving home-school connections. The participants’ desire to learn and their concerns over increasing violence and insecurity, reveal the militarized nature of their learning, as well, the possibility for critical and transformative learning against imperialism, patriarchy and class relations. | Ph.D. | educat, gender, women, equality, institution, rights | 4, 5, 16 |
| Al Abdullatif, Awatif Mohamed | MacKeigan, Linda | The Provision of Pharmaceutical Care in Oman: Practice and Perceived Facilitators and Barriers to Implementation | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2014-06 | Objectives: The study purpose was to determine the extent of the implementation of pharmaceutical care (PC) in Oman and factors affecting its implementation. Methods: A cross-sectional mail survey of all practicing pharmacists in Oman based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was conducted. The survey instrument was informed by a focus group study to identify behavioral, normative, and control beliefs amongst pharmacists in three practice settings. Results: The survey useable response rate was 61.2%. Participants provided PC activities between `sometimes' and `most of the time'; however, provision of advanced PC activities was limited. Provision of PC did not significantly differ across inpatient, outpatient, and community settings. Clinical knowledge, communication skills, pharmacist time, and adequate staffing were common facilitators across practice settings; worry about responsibility and culturally-based gender issues regarding patient care were common barriers. While having a private counseling area, and access to patient records and to drug information databases were facilitators identified in the public sector, their absence was a barrier in community pharmacies. Reimbursement was the main barrier in the private sector. Country of origin was significantly related to pharmacists' beliefs about providing PC; specifically, Omani pharmacists had significantly different behavioral, normative, and control beliefs than their South Asian counterparts. All constructs of the TPB (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) were significant predictors of intention to provide PC, but the added construct--past behavior recency was not. The overall variance explained in intention was 43%. Of the two predictors of behavior in the TPB model, only perceived behavioral control was significant; intention was not. The explained variance in PC behavior was 13.0%. Conclusions: This is the first study to examine the implementation of PC in Oman. The findings of this study will inform the development of strategies for advancing PC practice, a mandate of Ministry of Health and the pharmacy profession in Oman. The TPB was useful for explaining pharmacists' intention to provide PC; however, a longitudinal study is recommended to test its predictive validity for PC behavior. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Al-Bader, Sara | Singer, Peter A. | Science-based Health Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa | Medical Science | 2011-11 | Policy making bodies are increasingly highlighting the important role innovation can play in African development─not only to spur economic growth but also to deliver locally relevant, affordable products and services to African populations. The health sector is one area where innovation is most needed; however, we know very little about the capacity of African countries to innovate in this area. At the same time, a range of conceptual questions have arisen in the academic literature as to the very definition of innovation in an African context, and specifically, the applicability of the National Innovation System (NIS) to African countries. Through detailed case study research of science-based health firms in South Africa, of the NIS health system of Ghana, and by comparing these data with data collected in Uganda and Tanzania, I shed light on these questions from an empirical perspective. I find that science-based health innovation is a complex field, and whilst institutions can help or hinder its viability, the current state of health innovation in SSA can be attributed primarily to individual entrepreneurs with strong networks, who are taking risks in a largely non-enabling environment. I find that, more important for innovation, is the ability to access global knowledge–through appropriate policies and strong partnerships–and the capacity to apply it locally. For this, tacit knowledge, or “learning-by-doing,”’ to respond to consumer demand and achieve regional product penetration, is vital. My results show that the traditional focus on knowledge - or science-heavy innovation - will simply not capture the true extent of health innovation in SSA countries. Furthermore, science-based health innovation is clearly not one thing, and it is, for example, important to understand how plant medicine innovation fit in. The aims, intentions, and impacts of African health research on the countries themselves are rather vague, which constrains innovation at all levels. | PhD | health, economic growth, innovation, consum, institution | 3, 8, 12, 16 |
| Alali, Abdulaziz | Nathens, B. Avery | Process of Care and Outcome of Critically Ill Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2014-06 | This thesis used clinical epidemiology methods to examine the relationship between process of care and outcome of critically ill patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). First, I evaluated the association between intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring use and mortality after severe TBI at the patient-level and at the hospital-level. ICP monitoring use was associated with lower mortality at the patient-level [adjusted odds ratio (OR) was 0.44; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.31-0.63] and at the hospital-level (adjusted OR for death in the quartile of hospitals with highest use compared to the lowest was 0.52; 95% CI: 0.35-0.78). The main implication is that wider utilization of ICP monitoring in managing severe TBI appears warranted pending further studies. Second, I evaluated whether decompressive craniectomy or barbiturate coma provides better value, in terms of health effects and costs, for the management of refractory intracranial hypertension following TBI. Decompressive craniectomy resulted in greater quality-adjusted life expectancy relative to barbiturate coma [average gain was 1.5 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs)] but at higher costs (incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was $9,565/QALY gained). The main implication is that decompressive craniectomy, for this indication, is a more attractive strategy relative to barbiturate coma at commonly accepted willingness-to-pay thresholds. Third, I examined the relationship between tracheostomy timing and outcomes of TBI patients. Early tracheostomy ( | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Alavi, Sina | Mostaghimi, Javad | New Approaches to High Efficiency Inductively Coupled Plasma Analytical Atomic Spectrometry | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2018-06 | Two new strategies have been proposed for reducing the gas and energy consumption of ICP sources, in the first place, and improving their analytical performance, in the second place, for analytical atomic spectrometry. In the first strategy, a system was designed to collect the exhaust argon from the interface of an ICP-MS system, purify it, and recycle it back to the ICP torch. The experiments showed that the argon collection system was capable of withstanding the extreme temperatures of the plasma and collect most of the exhaust gas without disturbing the plasma. In the first stage of purifying the gas, a metal-foam heat exchanger coupled with a Peltier cooler was used to freeze the water content of the exhaust gas. In the second stage, a titanium-based heated filter was used to capture the other contaminants. The purification system was shown to be capable of purifying the exhaust argon for several hours of operation. In the second strategy, a new ICP torch was developed with significant reduction in gas and power consumption, but better analytical performance. Computer simulations were used extensively to design and optimize the torch based on the flow patterns, heat transfer, and electromagnetic field. This approach led to a new generation of ICP torches with a “conical” geometry. The new torch could work with up to 70% reduction in gas/energy consumption, at least 4 times higher power density, and a more stable plasma in comparison with the conventional “cylindrical” torches. Based on spectroscopic measurements, in comparison with the common Fassel-type torches, the new torch exhibited 1000–1700 K higher excitation/rotational temperature, 3 times higher robustness, 5 times higher electron density, less interference from easily-ionizable elements, and equal/better detection limits in multi-element analysis. It was further demonstrated that the whole vaporization/atomization/ionization of sample species could be completed in a shorter time using the new torch. Analyzing metal-tagged beads/cells with a commercial CyTOF2 mass cytometer showed that 50% reduction in event length and 2 times higher sensitivity could be achieved using the new torch. These improvements can potentially lead to higher sample throughput and shorter time of analysis per sample. | Ph.D. | energy | 7 |
| Alavy Ghahfarrokhy, Seyed Masih | Siegel, Jeffrey A | In-situ Measurement of Ventilation and Impacts of Filtration on IEQ and Energy use of Residential Buildings | Civil Engineering | 2019-11 | Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) impacts of filters in residential HVAC systems is a strong function of many HVAC system- and building-specific parameters. Furthermore, the energy consequences of filters can be important, and the magnitude and the sign of these energy impacts are system-specific as well. These system- and building-specific parameters can vary not only over different residential buildings, but also over the lifetime of a filter in a given building. A primary building-specific parameter that varies greatly over time is outdoor ventilation air change rate (ACR). ACR is not only an important particle removal mechanism, and a source of variations in filter IEQ performance, but it also is an important contributor to energy use in buildings. This work first critically reviews the existing literature on filtration and then presents an integrated evaluation of the overall IEQ and energy performance of higher efficiency residential filters. It also further develops the understanding of how ACR varies over time and how it influences filtration performance in residences. Yearlong measurement results from particle removal performance analysis of four different high efficiency filters placed in 21 residences in Toronto, Ontario showed that there was more variation in filter performance between the same filter in different homes than there was between different filters in the same home. In addition, increasing system runtime (ontime fraction) could also lead to higher particle removal impacts of filters. Study of energy consequences of the same filters in the same homes showed that fan energy consequences of high efficiency filters are negligible and because HVAC runtimes were generally low (median = 9.6%) in this sample of homes, the difference between energy consumption of different types of motor fans at typical runtimes was small (less than 10 kWh per month). Yearlong ACR measurements showed that ACR is a temporally dynamic parameter with timescales of minutes that varies considerably over long-term periods (e.g., geometric mean = 0.47/h, geometric standard deviation = 3.44 in one of the residences studied). Overall, this dissertation provides new methods and data for assessing the ventilation performance and impacts of filtration on IEQ and energy use of residential buildings. | Ph.D. | , buildings. Energy | 7, 9 |
| Albert, Alonso E. Gomez | Melino, Angelo | Essays in Market Integrations, and Economic Forecasting | Economics | 2012-11 | In this thesis I study two fields of empirical finance: market integration and economic forecasting. The first two chapters focus on studying regional integration of Mexican and U.S. equity markets. In the third chapter, I propose the use of the daily term structure of interest rates to forecast inflation. Each chapter is a free-standing essay that constitutes a contribution to the field of empirical finance and economic forecasting. In Chapter 1, I study the ability of multi-factor asset pricing models to explain the unconditional and conditional cross-section of expected returns in Mexico. Two sets of factors, local and foreign factors, are evaluated consistent with the hypotheses of segmentation and of integration of the international finance literature. Only one variable, the Mexican U.S. exchange rate, appears in the list of both foreign and local factors. Empirical evidence suggests that the foreign factors do a better job explaining the cross-section of returns in Mexico in both the unconditional and conditional versions of the model. This evidence provides some suggestive support for the hypothesis of integration of the Mexican stock exchange to the U.S. market. In Chapter 2, I study further the integration between Mexico and U.S. equity markets. Based on the result from chapter 1, I assume that the Fama and French factors are the mimicking portfolios of the underlying risk factors in both countries. Market integration implies the same prices of risk in both countries. I evaluate the performance of the asset pricing model under the hypothesis of segmentation (country dependent risk rewards) and integration over the 1990-2004 period. The results indicate a higher degree of integration at the end of the sample period. However, the degree of integration exhibits wide swings that are related to both local and global events. At the same time, the limitations that arise in empirical asset pricing methodologies with emerging market data are evident. The data set is short in length, has missing observations, and includes data from thinly traded securities. Finally, Chapter 3, coauthored with John Maheu and Alex Maynard, studies the ability of daily spreads at different maturities to forecast inflation. Many pricing models imply that nominal interest rates contain information on inflation expectations. This has lead to a large empirical literature that investigates the use of interest rates as predictors of future inflation. Most of these focus on the Fisher hypothesis in which the interest rate maturity matches the inflation horizon. In general, forecast improvements have been modest. Rather than use only monthly interest rates that match the maturity of inflation, this chapter advocates using the whole term structure of daily interest rates and their lagged values to forecast monthly inflation. Principle component methods are employed to combine information from interest rates across both the term structure and time series dimensions. Robust forecasting improvements are found as compared to the Fisher hypothesis and autoregressive benchmarks. | PhD | trade | 10 |
| Alcantara, Christopher | White, Graham | Deal? Or No Deal? Explaining Comprehensive Land Claims Negotiation Outcomes in Canada | Political Science | 2008-11 | In 1973, the Canadian government created the federal comprehensive land claims process to negotiate modern treaties with Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Despite 35 years of negotiations, many Aboriginal groups have failed to complete modern treaties. This dissertation explains why some Aboriginal groups have been able to complete modern treaties and why some have not. After examining four sets of negotiations in Newfoundland and Labrador and the Yukon Territory, I argue that scholars need to pay greater attention to the institutional framework governing treaty negotiations and to a number of factors relative to the Aboriginal groups. | PhD | institution | 16 |
| Aldughpassi, Ahmed | Wolever, Thomas M. S. | Physiological Effects of Barley: Examining the Effects of Cultivar, Processing and Food Form on Glycemia, Glycemic Index, Satiety and the Physico-chemical Properties of β-glucan | Nutritional Sciences | 2013-11 | Barley has been receiving increased attention as a human food due to the health benefits associated with β-glucan fiber and its potential as a low glycemic index (GI) functional food. Research has shown a relationship between the physico-chemical properties of β-glucan and the physiological effects, which may be altered by processing. However, it is not known if the physiological effects of consuming barley are affected by variations in chemical composition among cultivars or by common processing methods such as pearling or milling. The primary objective of this thesis was to characterize the effects of differences in cultivar starch and fibre content, level of pearling and milling on the GI, satiety and the physico-chemical properties of β-glucan. Nine barley cultivars varying in starch-type and β-glucan content were studied in three experiments in separate groups of ten healthy participants. Blood glucose and satiety ratings were measured and the GI was calculated. Total starch, total fibre, β-glucan, molecular weight (MW), solubility and β-glucan viscosity were determined in vitro. Results showed that GI varied by cultivar (CDC-Fibar, 26 ± 3 vs. AC-Parkhill, 35 ± 4, P < 0.05) and pearling (WG, 26 ± 4 vs. WP 35 ± 3, P < 0.05). When two cultivars were milled and processed to wet pasta the GI increased by 184% (P < 0.05). The pearled wet pasta had a significantly lower GI compared to the whole grain (P < 0.05). Boiled barley kernels tended to elicit greater satiety than white bread, but the difference was not significant. In both the boiled barley kernels and the wet pasta, pearling did not affect the MW, viscosity and solubility. MW did not significantly differ between cultivars but solubility and viscosity did (P < 0.05). The wet pasta had significantly lower MW, solubility, viscosity but not β-glucan content than the boiled barley kernels (P < 0.05). In conclusion, pearling did not have an effect but milling and extruding resulted in significant reduction in MW, solubility and viscosity. The GI of barley is influenced significantly by cultivar, pearling and milling. Further studies are required to determine the effect on satiety. | PhD | food, health, consum | 2, 3, 12 |
| Aleks, Rachel | Gunderson, Morley | Union Strategies and Potential Targets for New-Member Organizing in the United States | Industrial Relations and Human Resources | 2014-11 | This dissertation focuses on attempts by labor unions in the United States to prioritize new-member organizing as a means of reversing the decline in union density. In three papers, I look at strategic organizing efforts and opportunities at three distinct levels of analysis: the federation level, the national and local-union levels, and the level of the individual potential member. In the first paper, I look at efforts by seven unions that split from the AFL-CIO in 2005 to form a new union federation, Change to Win. I estimate the effect of Change to Win policies on whether the union won the certification election and the number and percentage of workers successfully organized, using data from the National Labor Relations Board and the National Mediation Board from September 2000 through September 2010 and a difference-in-difference estimator. The results indicate no statistically significant difference in organizing success, following Change to Win's formation and implementation of new organizing strategies and practices, relative to the AFL-CIO. The second paper of my dissertation analyzes recent attempts to organize the growing number of professional workers into historically blue-collar unions using a combination of data from the National Labor Relations Board and data from a national survey that I designed and administered to national and local unions throughout the country. Using a series of interactions, I test whether the effect of key strategies and tactics differ across professional-worker status. My results show that the effect of some typical union and employer strategies and characteristics does differ for professionals versus nonprofessionals. Finally, the third paper examines youth attitudes towards unions, since young workers are underrepresented in union membership. I examine how youth attitudes towards unions have changed over time using a generational approach and data from the 1976-2010 nationally representative Monitoring the Future survey of twelfth graders. I find that beginning with the Baby Boomers, each generation (i.e., Gen X and Gen Y) has had more favorable attitudes towards unions than the previous generation. Furthermore, I find that the antecedents of youth attitudes towards unions, including work values, socio-political beliefs, background, and employment history and expectations, have changed over each generation. | Ph.D. | worker, employment | 8 |
| Alene, Nebiyu Baye | Maclaren, Virginia | Politicizing Waste Collection and Discipling Waste Collectors: A critical Analysis of Waste Management Practice in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2003 - 2012) | Geography | 2015-11 | This dissertation investigates the unique approach the Addis Ababa city government (AACG) put in place to address the city’s waste collection problem. To solve the garbage problem AACG introduced major waste management reforms in 2003 and 2009. The two waste management reforms basically strived (1) to create employment opportunities for unemployed urban residents through mobilizing them to form government-initiated micro-enterprises (CMEs) and engage in door-to-door waste collection, and (2) to discipline waste in order to create a clean and livable city through increasing waste collection efficiency. The main focus of this dissertation is unpacking how the different techniques and rationalities waste governing institutions employed to discipline waste as a material politicized waste collection, define power relation between the city government and waste collectors, and disciplined waste collectors. I explore these issues through examining the specific spaces of engagement between waste collectors (formal and informal) and city government’s representatives by paying close attention to the everyday practices of waste collection between 2003 and 2012. Primary data collected included a questionnaire survey (n=423) and key informants’ interviews (n=28). Secondary data were also consulted. I use the concept of governance, everyday state, and the notion of governmentality as analytical frameworks. Empirical findings reveal that the city government’s objective of creating clean city between 2003 and 2009 was marred by the city government’s effort to tackle unemployment by securing waste collection activities for government-initiated CMEs. It is also shown that the different governing technologies the city government employed to discipline waste as a material were in fact aimed at disciplining waste collectors through reconfiguring the power relationship between waste governing institutions and waste collectors. The research also highlights the way the city government forms partnership with CMEs in the 2009 waste management reform. The research suggests that the city’s government favour of a specific arrangement of partnership that sits in the middle of the public-private spectrum where it is neither the full-scale privatization of services nor the kind of public service delivery that was prevalent before 2009. Moreover, the research raises important questions about the involvement of cooperative micro-enterprises in waste management. | Ph.D. | employment, urban, waste, institution, governance | 8, 11, 12, 16 |
| Alghamdi, Dalia Jamal | Kooy, Mary | EFL Teaching in University Classrooms in Saudi Arabia: A Case Study of Instructors and Curriculum and Implementation for Language Learning | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2017-03 | Literature has extensively documented the traditional conceptions of viewing teaching, learning, curriculum and implementation and recommends changing these traditional views for better teaching and learning outcomes. However; still some teachers view curriculum as a rigid document, learning as static, unalterable, and measurable by tests and teaching as transmitting knowledge and teachers as transmitter of prescribed knowledge. This thesis presents a case study of nine EFL instructors explaining the ways participating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors understand and implement the foundation year EFL university curriculum in Saudi Arabia and how their understanding impacts their implementation and language learning. This case study explains the factors affecting studentsâ learning through the eyes of the participating EFL instructors, the ways these EFL instructors re-imagine teaching and learning in the EFL curriculum at university, and the support needed for EFL instructors that would facilitate improved English teaching and learning. The rigid, hierarchical educational system and its effects on EFL in the foundation year as a result of its top-down organization, fixed curriculum, limited time, and poor outcomes were highlighted as factors that contribute to EFL teaching, learning, curriculum and implementation at university. The findings reveal that policy and power, voice and choice, culture, motivation, teacher learning, and resources are major factors that need reconsideration for improved EFL teaching and learning. One of the emerging considerations from this research is that participating EFL instructors need to rethink traditional, conventional conceptions of EFL curriculum, teaching, and learning at the university level in Saudi Arabia for improved teaching and learning outcomes. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Alharbi, Ohood | El-Sohemy, Ahmed | Genetic Variation Predicting Lactose Intolerance (LCT -13910C>T), Dairy Intake, 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and Risk of Cardiometabolic Disease | Nutritional Sciences | 2018-06 | Background: The LCT-13910C>T variant is associated with lactose intolerance (LI) in >70 ethnic populations. In Canada, the prevalence of the LCT -13910C>T variant is not known. Individuals with LI might avoid dairy, which is a rich source of calcium and vitamin D. Dairy has been associated with increased risk of cardiometabolic diseases, but findings have been equivocal. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of LI risk genotypes in major ethnic groups living in Canada and their association with 25(OH)D levels and biomarkers of cardiometabolic disease, and to determine food predictors of calcium and vitamin D in different LCT genotypes. Methods: A total of 1,495 participants from the Toronto Nutrigenomics and Health (TNH) study were used for the present study. Fasting blood samples were obtained for genotyping, 25(OH)D, biomarkers of cardiometabolic disease, and plasma proteomics. Dairy intake was assessed using a 196-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Results: Approximately 32% of Caucasians, 99% of East Asians, 74% of South Asians, and 59% of those with other ethnicities had the CC genotype associated with LI. In Caucasians, compared to the TT genotype, those with the CC genotype had lower dairy intake, and plasma 25(OH)D levels. The CT and CC genotypes were associated with lower calcium intake and increased risk of suboptimal ( | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Alhashme, Mohamed | Ashgriz, Nasser | A virtual thermostat for local temperature control | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2017-06 | This thesis presents design and operation of a newly developed virtual thermostat to control any desired local temperature in an HVAC controlled space. Conventional HVAC thermostats use a single point temperature sensor at one fixed location in a controlled space to control the temperature of the whole space. The single point temperature sensor does not represent the entire controlled domain. In addition, in most applications only a small zone in the controlled space needs to be controlled (for example where the people are located). Heating and cooling of the unnecessary zones lead to extra energy consumption that can be saved if only the required zones are controlled. Such a control system requires knowledge of the temperature distribution in the whole zone at all times. In this work, we have used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to determine the distributive temperature inside the controlled space at all times and turn the HVAC system ON and OFF based on the temperature of the desired zone in the space. In this study, we have determined the energy savings by comparing the energy consumption of a conventional thermostat controlled system with a locally controlled one. Several cases with different heat losses, and different inlet air velocities and directions are studied. Energy savings of up to 22% is realized for the cases studied here. In addition, the study showed the effect of personâ s location on the energy saving using the local control. One of the main problems with such a control system is that the CFD calculations may take a long time (10- 24 hours depending on the complexity of the problem), which is not practical for real-time temperature control. In order to reduce the computational times and simulate various operating conditions quickly, an artificial neural network (ANN) model is used to train the temperature control system. This resulted in reduction of the computational times to few seconds, making this system practical. This thesis, presents various elements of the newly developed virtual thermostat and its operating principals. | Ph.D. | energy, consum | 7, 12 |
| Ali, Ayesha | Benjamin, Dwayne||Bobonis, Gustavo J | The Impact of Electricity Outages on Households | Economics | 2016-11 | Electricity outages are a common occurrence in developing countries and can have a substantial impact on household welfare. In this dissertation, I assemble a unique data set with a district level measure of outages, electricity generation prices, and labour market outcomes to examine the effect of outages on employment and earnings. I also develop an analytical framework that can be used to measure the welfare impact of outages on households arising from disruption of electricity used in the home. In chapter 1, I construct a district level measure of outages in Pakistan using the intra-annual variability in night lights observed in meteorological satellite data. I estimate the elasticity between variability and reported outages, and use household electricity consumption data to show that electricity consumption declines as variability increases within districts. These findings establish that night lights variability is a valid measure of outages that can be used in empirical applications where subnational data on outages is not available. In chapter 2, I estimate the effect of outages on labour market outcomes of adult males in Pakistan. To address the problem of measurement error and potential endogeneity in night lights variability, I use exogenous variation in the price of energy used to generate electricity at thermal plants near a district, as an instrument. I find that outages have a significant negative effect on employment, days worked, earnings and productivity. A larger effect on districts with a greater reliance on electricity intensive industries and more educated workers suggests labour demand driven reduction in productivity. In chapter 3, I develop an analytical framework to measure the welfare impact of electricity outages on households. The welfare effect or the willingness to pay for a reduction in outages is larger the greater is the impact on home produced services affected by outages. It is also larger the smaller is the observed change in grid electricity expenditures. I find that the elasticity of grid electricity consumption to outages is smaller the more outward shifted is the demand for electricity, suggesting that households with a high value for electricity adapt by rescheduling activities or acquiring off-grid supply. | Ph.D. | consum, industr, worker, labour, employment, energy, educat | 4, 7, 8, 9, 12 |
| Ali, Noaman G | Kasturi, Malavika||Kingston, Paul | The Hashtnagar Peasant Movement: Agrarian Class Struggle, Hegemony and State Formation in Northwestern Pakistan, 1947–1986 | Political Science | 2019-06 | This study examines how peasant movements led by revolutionaries impacted state formation, or more broadly the institutional configuration of power, in post-colonial Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The study asks, first, how did a movement of lower classes, specifically tenant farmers and landless labourers, win concessions from landed elites and also shape the direction and institutionalization of state power in the 1970s? Second, why did revolutionary politics in Pakistan decline and fade away, diverging from its counterparts in other parts of South Asia? Based on archival research, oral history, and participant observation, the study divides a narrative of nearly forty years of events into three critical conjunctures, comparing and contrasting the inter-actions of radical organizers, rural classes, the political organizations representing exploiting propertied classes, and the state. The first conjuncture concerns the late 1940s, when the Communist Party of Pakistan’s inadequate preparation and organization of peasants led to an ultimately failed movement in the northern Hashtnagar area. The second conjuncture covers the period from the late 1960s to the early 1970s in which the communists formed the Mazdoor Kisan Party. The party’s organizational work contributed to the comparative success of 1970s peasant struggles in the form of de facto land and tenancy reforms and the decline of institutions of landlord power in villages, alongside the generation of new and renewed institutions of peasant power. Peasant organization compelled the state apparatus to intervene in favour of tenants. The third conjuncture concerns the denouement of the peasant movement in the latter 1970s and 1980s. As tenants became de facto proprietors of land their involvement in the movement and party organization declined, leaving them unable to mount a significant challenge to a military regime that restored some of the power of landed elites. Nevertheless, tenants largely preserved the gains they had made. Ultimately, the institutional configuration of power inside and outside of the apparatus of the state was determined by the balance of power between different classes. Moreover, strategic choices that revolutionary organizers made about confronting the state frontally as opposed to lowkey organizing increased or decreased their own organizational capacity and longevity. | Ph.D. | labour, rural, institution | 8, 11, 16 |
| Allan, Billie | Sakamoto, Izumi | Rupture, Defragmentation and Reconciliation: Re-visioning the Health of Urban Indigenous Women in Toronto | Social Work | 2013-11 | This doctoral research seeks to advance understanding about what impacts the health and well-being of urban Indigenous women in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is grounded in the goal of centering Indigenous women’s knowledge and revitalizing recognition of Indigenous women as leaders in the care of health knowledge, who continue to carry roles and responsibilities as knowledge and vision keepers, healers, helpers and caregivers despite the mass devastation caused by colonization. Utilizing an Indigenous research method, research circles and interviews were used to gather knowledge with twenty-three Indigenous women asking the following questions: 1) What helps you to be healthy and well here in the city? 2) What gets in the way of your health and well-being? and 3) What do you envision as needed to support your health and well-being and that of Indigenous women generally here in Toronto? The findings of the research highlight the ways in which women seek wholeness and (w)holistic health care and services in attending to their health and well-being. The stories shared speak to the rupture and fragmentation caused by colonization as experienced by the participants, specifically the disconnection and dislocation that they faced due to child welfare apprehension, adoption or violence, while emphasizing the ways in which they have or are presently navigating these challenges in relation to their health and well-being – a process of defragmentation. This thesis is also, in part, the story of how I am learning my role as a caretaker of knowledge (as I would describe the role of researcher), learning how to gather it, care for it and share it back in a good way. It is the story of what I know now, a knowledge that will continue to grow over time, with more experience to better understand the full beauty and depth of what has been shared. This thesis is a knowledge bundle of stories gathered with urban Indigenous women in the city of Toronto to help better understand what impacts their health and well-being, and what they see as needed moving forward. It is woven together with my own story of who I am, where I come from and why I came looking for this knowledge. | PhD | health, women, urban | 3, 5, 11 |
| Allan, Katherine Sarah | Dorian, Paul | The Family Study: Assessment of the Incidence, Etiology, Circumstances and Familial Risk for Sudden Cardiac Death and Aborted Sudden Cardiac Death in Young Individuals | Medical Science | 2016-06 | Background: Recent reviews have highlighted our lack of information on the incidence etiology and circumstances of sudden death (SD) in the young, particularly the distribution of underlying disorders, preventable triggers, and identifiable familial predisposition to fatal arrhythmias. Methods: This study had 3 parts: (1) the development and (2) implementation of a novel, comprehensive methodology to capture all SDs and aborted SDs (both cardiac and non-cardiac) in a defined geographic area, (3) followed by a feasibility study with a case control design. We utilized a prospectively collected, population-based registry of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) in the Greater Toronto Area, to identify patients from 2009-2012. The retrospective study included cases that were OHCAs ages 2-45, treated or untreated, died or survived and we reviewed all available data for each case and adjudicated an etiology. In the feasibility study, included cases were presumed cardiac, treated OHCAs ages 18-65. Two relatives per patient were interviewed regarding symptoms prior to the arrest, cardiac history, and family history of sudden cardiac death (SCD). Two sets of control patients were administered the same questionnaire as cases. Results: We identified 656 SCDs ages 2-45 over a 4 year period, with an overall annual incidence rate of 3.97 per 100,000 persons. We report a high autopsy rate, with a shift towards ischemic heart disease as the predominant underlying etiology in adults ages 35-45, from structural heart disease and sudden unexplained deaths in children. Adults experienced their SCDs more frequently at home and at rest than did children, and most reported new symptoms in the day preceding their event. Our feasibility studies demonstrated that it is viable to obtain a reliable family history of SCD and major cardiac risk factors from both cases and controls using a self-developed survey. Conclusions: By using a validated comprehensive population based registry of consecutive cases to identify all eligible patients, in combination with a novel classification methodology, large sample size, and multiple sources of data, we were able to better describe the nature and scope of the problem of sudden cardiac death within a young, urban Canadian population. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Allan, Kori Louise | McElhinny, Bonnie | Learning how to "Skill" the Self: Citizenship and Immigrant Integration in Toronto, Canada | Anthropology | 2014-11 | The underemployment of foreign-trained professional immigrants became an intense focus of Canadian immigration policy and integration programs in the 2000s, particularly in Toronto, which receives more immigrants than any other Canadian city. This thesis examines how government conceived of this `skilled immigrant underemployment problem' and in turn promoted particular solutions to address it. Rather than viewing the role of government as needing to intervene in the labour market, it largely focused on reforming individual immigrants. In particular, integration programs tended to focus on "soft skills" training, which construed individual immigrants as skills deficient and as requiring training in "Canadian workplace culture". This dissertation thereby examines the ways in which immigrants were urged to sell the self, and how they were asked to become particular kinds of Canadian workers and citizens. I argue that these integration programs largely did not ameliorate un(der)employment, for they did not address the systemic discrimination new immigrants faced. Rather, I show how they increased the regulation of the un(der)employed and attempted to shape subjectivities in line with values dubbed "Canadian", which were integral to post-Fordist forms of labour and (neo)liberal rationalities of government. More specifically, I demonstrate how immaterial labour is deeply assimilatory. Rather than merely produce material products, workers must embody a brand/product, affectively and effectively, in ways that are deeply classed, racialized and gendered. These behavioural dispositions, however, were rendered technical and thus governable through a skills discourse. Additionally, I argue that these interventions reproduced a transition industry that facilitated and contributed to the cycling of new immigrants through endless job fairs and other training programs, a process through which they became flexible and entrepreneurial citizens who accepted responsibility for their own "employability". These programs thus constituted a means of rationalizing and managing (un)employment insecurity and of reproducing and regulating flexible labor. | Ph.D. | gender, employment, labour, worker, industr | 5, 8, 2009 |
| Alleson, Richard | Birn, Anne-Emanuelle | Contested Environmental Illness in the Negev/al-Naqab: A Narrative Analysis of lLcal Knowledge and Organizational Struggle | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2011-11 | In 2003, the Israeli government announced plans to transfer a large army base from the centre of the country to the Negev (al-Naqab in Arabic), 8 kilometers downwind from the Ramat Hovav industrial zone and national hazardous waste treatment site. Since its creation in 1975, Ramat Hovav has been a major centre for bio-chemical production, hazardous waste treatment and consequently, pollution. For decades, Bedouin residents from Wadi Naam had been living adjacent to the industrial zone, their concerns and protests remaining unheard. However, when the health of Israeli soldiers serving at the prospective site was at stake, local environmental disputes shifted into the national spotlight. The decision to move the army base was a catalyst for a prolonged struggle over conflicting interpretations of environmental health risks. Using a narrative-based case study methodology, this research examines both the local environmental knowledge and the organizational strategies that inform the contested environmental illness struggles that took place at the Ramat Hovav industrial zone between 1997 and 2011. It illustrates how environmental organizations, policymakers, and industrial representatives, through protracted challenges and counter-challenges, found an interim approach for addressing pollution, thereby clearing the way for the construction of the army base. It also illuminates the differential treatment of contested environmental illness by state, municipal, and organizational actors when the subjects at risk are Jewish Israeli youth, as opposed to Bedouin residents, thus uncovering institutionalized environmental discrimination toward the Bedouin of Wadi Naam that is symptomatic of prejudicial public policies dating back to the establishment of the state. The first formal study of contested environmental illness in the Middle East, this case contributes broader insight into the institutional dynamics of environmental injustice, the relationship between local knowledge and political pressure, and the organizational tactics underlying environmental risk management. | PhD | health, wind, industr, production, waste, environment, pollut, institution, justice | 3, 7, 9, 13, 16 |
| Almas, Andrew David | Conway, Tenley M. | Native Trees, Urban Forest Management Planning, and Residents: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Actions | Geography | 2017-06 | In the past decade, municipalities across North America have increased investment in their urban forests in an effort to maintain and enhance the numerous benefits provided by them. Some municipalities have drafted long-term urban forest management plans (UFMPs) that emphasize the planting of native trees to improve ecological integrity, and participation of residents, since the majority of urban trees are typically located on residential property. Yet it is unclear if municipal foresters are mindful of UFMP goals or what residentsâ level of knowledge, attitudes, and actions are regarding native trees and urban forestry goals. Through a case study of southern Ontario municipalities, I administered interviews with municipal foresters and a survey exploring residentsâ ability to identify the native status of common tree species, as well as their attitudes and actions regarding urban forest issues. The results indicate that all municipalities with management plans emphasize native species, and many justify their planting as a way to increase ecological integrity. However, only a fraction of species native to the region are available through nursery stock, meaning many are not planted by municipalities. The results of the survey indicate that residents are better able to identify common native trees than non-native trees, although knowledge-levels are low, and there are failures of resident outreach within the case study municipalities. Although residents generally have positive attitudes towards native trees, few are interested in planting native species if they create a hazard or increase costs. These positive attitudes do not translate into emphasizing native species when actually selecting tree species to plant. This dissertation adds to existing research surrounding native species management in urban ecosystems, and understandings about how urban forestry policy influences residents and municipal actors. Future research is needed to determine species suitability for urban plantings and meaningful ways of engaging with new residents. | Ph.D. | forest, urban | 9, 15 |
| Alon, Pnina | Macklem, Patrick | The Aging Workforce: Addressing its Challenges Through Development of a Dignified Lives Approach to Equality | Law | 2010-03 | Against the background of the global demographic shift towards an aging workforce and its impacts on the labour market and the economy in industrialized societies, this dissertation pinpoints six salient challenges for future litigation and policy-making in the area of labour and employment discrimination law. These include the global tendency towards abolishing mandatory retirement and increasing the eligibility age for pension benefits; legislative age-based distinctions; cost as a justification for age discrimination; performance appraisals of senior workers; and the duty to accommodate senior workers. At the core of each challenge lies a normative question regarding our conception of senior workers’ right to age equality, its importance and relative weight compared with other rights and interests. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to critically review the current understanding of this right and its moral and economic underpinning. Most notably, the dissertation contends that the prevailing conception of equality assessment (the Complete Lives Approach to equality), according to which equality should be assessed based on a comparison of the total share of resources obtained by individuals over a lifetime, has substantial implications for age discrimination discourse. As it uncovers the numerous difficulties with the complete lives approach, the dissertation develops an alternative: the Dignified Lives Approach to equality, according to which an individual should be treated with equal concern and respect, at any particular time and regardless of any comparison. The dissertation then articulates five essential principles founded in Dworkin’s notion of equal concern and respect: the principle of individual assessment, the principle of equal influence, the principle of sufficiency, the principle of social inclusion, and the principle of autonomy. When one of these principles is not respected at any particular time, a wrong is done, and the right to equality is violated. Next, the dissertation elucidates when and why unequal treatment of senior workers based on age does not respect each of these five principles and therefore constitutes unjust age discrimination. It demonstrates that senior workers’ right to age equality is a fundamental human right. Finally, it examines the above-mentioned challenges through the lens of the new Dignified Lives approach. | SJD | rights, industr, worker, labour, employment, equality | 8, 9, 16 |
| Alschech, Jonathan | Regehr, Cheryl | Predictors of Violence, Traumatic Stress, and Burnout in Sex Work | Social Work | 2019-11 | This dissertation reports and discusses the findings of an online survey of 339 sex workers in Canada and the United States concerning their experiences of traumatic stress, burnout, and violence by clients, their working conditions and environment, and their perceptions and experiences of their clients. The survey was designed to collect data on the prevalence of harm and distress among sex workers across the various contexts and locations in which sex work is bought, as well as on how harm and distress in sex work relate to client behaviours and characteristics, structural factors such as sex work stigma and racial or ethnic identity, and protective factors such as working conditions and social cohesion. The 339 sex workers surveyed reported very high levels of traumatic stress, with at least half the respondents reporting levels of traumatic stress consistent with a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis. Respondents also reported a very high prevalence of violent clients, as nearly half of the clients were reported to be violent. The prevalence of violence by clients was somewhat lower, with half of respondents experiencing violence occasionally and 25% of respondents reporting violence as a rare occurrence. Burnout levels among the surveyed workers were also high; half the sample reported levels of burnout above the accepted threshold for detecting burnt-out workers. A higher prevalence of clients perceived as adhering to hegemonic masculinity norms significantly predicted higher levels of traumatic stress as well as a higher prevalence of violent clients. Also, a higher prevalence of clients motivated by their inability to access non-commercial sex due to a physical or mental disability or lack of social skills significantly predicted higher levels of violence by clients and higher prevalence of violent clients. More control over working conditions significantly predicted lower levels of traumatic stress, and higher levels of social cohesion significantly predicted lower levels of burnout. Sex work stigma significantly predicted variation in the prevalence of violence by clients, prevalence of violent clients, levels of traumatic stress, and levels of burnout in the surveyed sex workers. | Ph.D. | worker | 8 |
| Alshaer, Hisham | Fernie, Geoff R ||Bradley, T Douglas | A Single-Channel Acoustic Method for Portable Diagnosis of Sleep Apnea | Biomedical Engineering | 2014-11 | Background: Sleep apnea is a very common disease with serious health consequences. It affects approximately 85% of adults, most of whom remain undiagnosed, which puts them at risk of car accidents, because of sleepiness, and hypertension, heart failure, and stroke. The objective of this thesis was to develop a single-channel device for portable monitoring of sleep apnea that uses breath sounds collected via a microphone placed in front of the nose and mouth. Methods: Project 1: Frequency characterization was used to identify the basic components of the respiratory cycle, i.e., inspiration and expiration. Project 2: Inspiratory sounds were used to determine upper airway narrowing by means of Linear Predictive Coding (LPC), which was validated against objective measures of upper airway resistance. Project 3: An algorithm to calculate the frequency of apneas and hypopneas per hour (apnea-hypopnea index or AHI) was developed and validated against polysomnography in 50 subjects during sleep. Project 4: Finally, a self contained device was then developed and evaluated in 49 subjects in the home setting, 11 of whom used the device on 2 different nights. Results: Project 1: Inspiratory and expiratory phases had characteristically different spectra that allowed them to be distinguished with up to 97% correct classification. Project 2: LPC coefficients were found to be modulated by the ensuing of upper airway narrowing. Project 3: AHI determined by acoustic analysis showed up to 94% correlation with PSG and up to 90% diagnostics accuracy. Project 4: In the home unattended setting, the overall rating for ease-of-use was excellent and the success rate of independent use was 94%. The portable device showed excellent performance with very high signal-to-noise ratio of 31.7 dB. The intra-subject 2-night AHI scores were reproducible in 9 out of 11 (82%) home subjects, which is well within reported inter-night variability. Conclusion: Acoustic analysis of breath sounds is a powerful tool for characterization of respiratory patterns including upper airway narrowing and accurate identification of apneas and hypopneas as compared with the current gold standard. This technology can be packaged in a compact device that can be used independently and reliably in the home environment. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Alshalalfah, Baha Waheed Yousef | Shalaby, Amer Saïd | Planning, Design and Scheduling of Flex-route Transit Service | Civil Engineering | 2009-11 | The rapid expansion of low-density suburban areas in North America has led to new travel patterns that require transit services to be more flexible. Flex-Route transit service, which combines fixed-route transit service with elements of demand-responsive transit service, has emerged as a viable transit option to address the travel needs of the residents of these areas. Existing literature in this field, however, is limited and lacks any comprehensive analysis of Flex-Route planning, design and scheduling. This research aims at exploring Flex-Route transit service to provide detailed guidelines for the planning and design of the service, as well as developing a new scheduling system for this type of unique service. Accordingly, the objectives of this research are: assessing the practicality of Flex-Route transit service in serving low-density suburban areas; identifying essential Flex-Route planning steps and design parameters; determining the feasibility and cost of replacing fixed-route transit with Flex-Route service; and developing a Flex-Route-specific dynamic scheduling system that relies on recent developments in computer and communication technologies. In this regard, we develop an analytical model that addresses several design parameters and provide a detailed analysis that includes, among other parameters, finding optimal values for Flex-Route service area and slack time. Furthermore, the analytical model includes a feasibility and cost analysis that estimates the cost incurred by several stakeholders if Flex-Route service is chosen to replace fixed-route service. The core of the scheduling system is a new developed algorithm – the Constrained-Insertion Algorithm- that exploits the powerful search techniques of Constraint Programming. The scheduling system can handle the daily operations of Flex-Route transit services; it accepts daily (or dynamic) inputs and, in minimal time, produces very cost-effective and reliable schedules. Moreover, the scheduling system has the ability to be used as simulation tool to allow transit operators to assess the feasibility and performance of proposed Flex-Route transit services before implementation. The applicability of the analytical model as well as the performance of the scheduling system were subsequently evaluated and validated through process that included testing on a case study in the City of Oakville, Canada. | PhD | urban | 11 |
| Amernic, Heidi | Boon, Heather | Exploring Patient-centred Primary Care in Family Health Teams | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2016-11 | Background: Family Health Teams (FHTs) are primary care models established to provide comprehensive, patient-centred care to Ontarians through an interprofessional team approach. However, little is known about how patient-centred interprofessional team care is operationalized in a FHT, specifically regarding the workflow processes employed across diverse clinical contexts. Objectives: To (1) define patient-centred care in an interprofessional primary health care team context; (2) to identify factors that act as either enablers or barriers to operationalizing patient-centred care; and (3) propose a framework of patient-centred interprofessional team care. Design: Qualitative approach Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 patient and 24 provider participants from three Family Health Teams in Ontario, Canada. Participants were asked to describe experiences defining aspects of patient-centred care and how contextual factors influenced their experiences. Interview questions were guided by the Patient Centred Clinical Method (Stewart et al. 2003). Transcripts were coded by two independent investigators using a content analysis approach, followed by discussion to reach consensus. Data analysis was guided by the qualitative analysis framework defined by Miles and Huberman (1994): data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing/verification. Results: Patient-centred care is provided by the “wider provider”, defined by participants as a patient’s interprofessional primary health care team. The wider provider is formed through referrals and may adjust in response to patient needs. Members of the wider provider leverage information collected by one another to address scope appropriate patient needs. Participants described contextual factors (such as co-location status of providers and access to electronic patient records); and individual factors (such as physician referral practices) that act as either intentional or unintentional workflow “blocks” on the functioning of the “wider provider”. These “blocks” encourage alternate patterns of workflow, or “workarounds”, which impact both the patient and provider experience. Conclusion: In an interprofessional primary health care team context, a patient-centred experience is defined by factors beyond just the patient’s relationship and interaction with an individual provider. This study presents a novel framework of patient-centred care in an interprofessional primary health care team context. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Amir, Eitan | Tannock, Ian | Optimizing the Tailored Treatment of Breast Cancer | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2012-11 | Background: Breast cancer is a diverse disease. Over the past 3 decades it has been increasingly appreciated that therapy should be targeted to specific patient and tumour characteristics. In recent years the evaluation of tailored therapy has been dominated by the development of new drug therapy which when successful has been marketed at a high price. There have been few successful attempts to optimize currently available therapies. This thesis explores the optimization of currently available therapies in three domains: efficacy, toxicity and supportive care. Methods: Three independent studies were undertaken. First, a prospective cohort study was conducted to assess the impact of re-biopsy of recurrent breast cancer on physician choice of therapy and on patient satisfaction. The second study comprised a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials exploring toxicities associated with different endocrine therapy options for early breast cancer with the aim of identification of patients who may be harmed by certain drugs. Finally, a randomized feasibility study was conducted to evaluate de-escalated intravenous bisphosphonates in women with low-risk metastatic breast cancer to bone. Results: All studies met their objectives in showing that the tailored use of available therapies can be optimized. The prospective study of the impact of re-biopsy showed that treatment decisions were modified in 14% of women. Patient satisfaction with the process of re-biopsy was high. The meta-analysis of toxicities of endocrine therapy identified cardiovascular disease as a statistically significant toxicity of aromatase inhibitors, thereby suggesting that those with established cardiovascular disease or risk factors thereof should reduce their exposure to these drugs. Finally, the randomized feasibility study showed that it is possible to conduct randomized trials of de-escalated bisphosphonates in women with low-risk breast cancer and there was no signal that reducing the frequency of treatment was associated with untoward outcomes. Conclusions: It is possible to optimize the tailored therapy of breast cancer using currently available treatments. This may lead to improved patient outcome while using existing resources. Further studies assessing the optimization of other treatments are warranted. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Amiri, Touraj | Stermac, Lana | Occupational Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Latent Structure and Risk Pathways | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2018-11 | Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a sequela of work-related incidents is associated with significant health and socioeconomic burden. The current study examined the latent structure of PTSD symptoms, their moderators and predictors, and explored a risk pathway model in a sample of trauma-exposed workers (N = 440). Six models, ranging from 1 to 5 factors, representing 17 PTSD symptoms described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) and assessed by the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-IV (CAPS-DX; Blake et al., 1995), were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The dysphoria model (Simms et al., 2002) had adequate fit, provided a parsimonious structure over competing models, and evidenced differential correlation patterns with symptoms of depression, anxiety and pain. Measurement invariance across gender and interpersonal violence was obtained for the dysphoria model. Differences due to gender and interpersonal violence in severity of the hyperarousal factor were found. Subsequently, the social cognitive theory of posttraumatic recovery (Benight Bandura, 2004) and epidemiological literature guided conceptualization of a risk pathway model using structural equation modeling. The model supported self-efficacy as a proximal predictor of PTSD. Further, it highlighted the role of trauma type (interpersonal violence), vulnerability (family psychiatric history, female gender, childhood adversity), and protective (education and social support) factors. While historical predictors or their impact may be difficult to change, coping self-efficacy is known to be amenable to psychological intervention with promising results (Benight Bandura, 2004). Coping self-efficacy may be an important target of psychological assessment and intervention. | Ph.D. | socioeconomic, health, educat, gender, worker | 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 |
| Amirjamshidi, Glareh | Roorda, Matthew J. | Assessment of Commercial Vehicle Emissions and Vehicle Routing of Fleets using Simulated Driving Cycles | Civil Engineering | 2015-06 | Growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions has prompted research on identifying means to control and reduce these emissions. In transportation, vehicle emissions are strongly correlated with driver behaviour. Research relating driving behaviour with emissions uses driving cycles that are assumed to be constant regardless of vehicle type for a specific area. Using a single driving cycle, however, is simplistic for emission estimation purposes as there is significant variance in the driving behaviour of different vehicle types on various road types. In this research, microsimulation models are used to generate road and vehicle specific driving cycles to improve emission estimation. Typically, the calibration of microsimulation models are carried out using vehicle counts and average speed of vehicles. A genetic algorithm is used to show that calibrating these models against acceleration data in addition to average speed and vehicle count would provide a more accurate representation of driver behaviour. This claim is validated by comparing simulation results with observed values of different parameters related to driving behaviour. The model is then used to create improved driving cycles for various types of vehicles on different types of roads. Use of simulation allows data to be collected under consistent traffic conditions for all vehicle and road types. It is also shown that using simulated driving cycles produces emission factors that are closer to the observed compared to the average speed model. Finally, as a demonstration of the application of these driving cycles, a green routing problem has been used as a test case. The test case uses the developed driving cycles to optimize the routes of a hypothetical delivery company to minimize their emissions and costs under various circumstances incorporating the effect of vehicle load in estimating emissions. Results show statistically significant differences in total distance travelled, driving time, and CO2-eq emitted as the result of different minimization criteria of distance-, time-, and emissions optimal. It is also shown that by using the proposed approach, insightful analysis of emissions under various policies of cap-and-trade vs. carbon taxing can be conducted with good accuracy without requiring technology changes or other investments, which may be expensive. | Ph.D. | greenhouse gas, trade | 10, 13 |
| Ampleman-Tremblay, Sandrine | Stewart, Hamish | Prosecuting and Sentencing Police Sexual Assaults: A Canadian Perspective | Law | 2018-11 | This thesis is intended to provide a first normative review of the justice system and Canadian criminal courts’ handling of police sexual assaults. To achieve this purpose, the author, after having described the phenomenon of police sexual misconduct and the implications of the legal concept of sexual assault (s. 271 Criminal Code), outlines the main barriers to prosecution and the sentencing framework that was generally applied in Canadian police sexual assault cases. The analysis is based on twelve cases heard before Canadian courts, but excludes ethics and professional misconduct cases from institutions such as the Special Investigation Unit in Ontario. Finally, the thesis concludes with a chapter dedicated to possible solutions. This last segment is divided into three subsections: before trial, at trial, and at the sentencing phase. Solutions suggested include not only legal reforms, but also educational changes in law schools. Ce mémoire analyse les cas d’agressions sexuelles commises par des policiers au Canada. Le phénomène d’inconduite sexuelle policière et le concept d’agression sexuelle (a. 271 du Code criminel) sont d’abord décrits. Puis, les principaux obstacles inhérents à la judiciarisation de ces cas et les principes de détermination de la peine qui s’appliquent sont précisés. Cette première étude en droit canadien est basée sur douze jugements rendus par des cours canadiennes, excluant cependant toutes décisions de comités de déontologie, et toutes inconduites professionnelles traitées par des institutions telles que l’unité des enquêtes spéciales de l’Ontario. Finalement, diverses solutions légales et éducationnelles (c.-à-d. préliminaires au procès, durant son cours et lors de la détermination de la peine) sont proposées pour remédier à ce problème sociétal. | LL.M. | institution, justice | 16 |
| An, Sofiya | Chambon, Adrienne | Multiple Institutional Logics within the (Trans)National Welfare Diamond: Child Welfare Transformation in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan | Social Work | 2014-06 | For over two post-Soviet decades, Kazakhstan has experienced multiple transformations, big and small, visible and invisible, recognized and unnoticed. Focusing on child welfare transformation in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, this thesis pursues two research questions: (1) How have child welfare institutions changed in Kazakhstan in the post-Soviet period? (2) What was the role of (trans)national institutional factors (i.e., legal and regulatory environments, organizational policies and practices, and interorganizational relationships) and Soviet institutional legacies in shaping institutions of child welfare provision in Kazakhstan?Using an integrated multidimensional theoretical framework built upon the welfare diamond, a transnational approach, and historical institutionalism, I examine a mix of national and transnational organizations involved in child welfare reform, conceptualizing them as interconnected policy actors embedded in the historically contingent (trans)national institutional (legal and regulatory) environment. Using qualitative case study methodology for social policy analysis, this thesis draws upon data collected through interviews with key informants, conducted between June and September 2012, and textual documents (policy and legal documents, organizational and program documents, research reports, and media reports). The thesis develops two main arguments. The first argument concerns institutional factors that shape child welfare institutions. The transformation of the child welfare system was a function of relations among (trans)national organizational actors whose behaviors were constrained and enabled by the wider (trans)national legal/regulatory environment. The institutional environment and the child welfare diamond were characterized by multiple, competing, and shifting institutional logics. My second argument concerns the effects of the institutional and organizational environment on child welfare institutions. Multiple institutional logics, I argue, have accounted for the development of hybrid child welfare institutions, which encompass core Soviet-type child welfare institutions, maintained and reproduced, along with multiple layers of new institutions introduced over the past twenty years. This analysis indicates that the post-Soviet change in welfare provision consisted of numerous incremental and multidirectional institutional adjustments. | Ph.D. | environment, institution | 13, 16 |
| Anderson, Helen Marie | Ford, Maureen | Mastering the Story/Storying the Master: Philosophy of Education Discourse and Empire | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2011-11 | This dissertation is an exploration of the role of Euro-North American Philosophy of Education discourse in the genealogy of race struggle. I examine how the reliable narration of Philosophy of Education functions as a project of racial rule premised on moral/temporal/spatial notions of (White) civility and respectability. Tracing the history of race war from the 17th century to present day, I look at how racism has shifted from sovereign power to disciplinary power to biopower as a mode of population management, operating not only through race but through gender and class distinctions as well. I analyze the racialized narrative conventions of liberal modern Enlightenment philosophy and the role these conventions continue to play in the creation and maintenance of a violent racial state. Drawing upon Critical Race Theory, feminist epistemologies, narrative theory, and the work of Michel Foucault, I look at what reliable narration does for philosophers, educators, and students, examining what we/they might have invested in maintaining a distinction between ‘reliability’ and ‘unreliability.’ I ask: How is reliable narration used as a tool by philosophers, educators, and ultimately, the state to distinguish between the civil and uncivil, between those worthy and unworthy of moral consideration, political engagement, and basic human rights? How do the impartiality, univocality, universality, and dispassion of reliable narratives become tied to race and the management of racialized bodies? My aim is to examine the ways in which race as a method of governance acts on a text, its author(s), and its audience. “How are racialized subjectivities constituted through and constitutive of language and knowledge,” I ask, “and to what effect?” I want to trace the social and civil relations mapped out by particular narrative conventions and examine the consequences of failing to adhere to such conventions. I suggest that by questioning the function of reliable narration in philosophical and pedagogical practice, educators, scholars, and students can intervene in the operation of race as a mode of discipline, creating the possibility of a more equitable society in which all have the opportunity to flourish. | PhD | equitable, gender, governance, rights | 5, 6, 16 |
| Anderson, Laura | Sellen, Daniel | The Immigrant Experience, Child Feeding and Care: An Examination of the Determinants of Children's Health and Nutrition in Newcomer Families | Anthropology | 2014-06 | This study aims to examine how the migration experience influences newcomer mothers’ young child feeding and care practices and their children’s overall health. The thesis comprises three separate manuscripts, each of which examines one of the three intermediate determinants of the nutritional status of young children (UNICEF 1990): access to healthcare, household food insecurity, and child feeding and care practices. The research was conducted in Toronto’s Jane-Finch neighbourhood, a suburban neighbourhood home to a high density of newcomers. Thirty-two participants (16 Sri Lankan Tamil and 16 Latin American) who had migrated to Canada within the past five years as refugee claimants or family sponsored immigrants participated in the study. Data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews with women from low-income households who had a child between the ages of 1 and 5 years. Spanish and Tamil speaking interviewers interviewed each participant two or three times. Data was analyzed using a mid-level approach in which broad analytical themes are determined prior to analysis and specific themes were then generated based on participants’ perspectives and are grounded in the data. The first manuscript examines newcomer mothers’ experiences accessing physicians for their children and identifies the major gaps between mothers’ expectations and their actual experiences that lead to barriers in communication and overall patient dissatisfaction. The second manuscript demonstrates that mothers’ past experiences with food insecurity affect two aspects of the construct of food insecurity: its managed aspect and its temporal nature. This finding has implications for the measurement of food insecurity in newcomer populations. The third manuscript reveals that newcomer mothers are exposed to several parallel and often conflicting systems of knowledge concerning health and nutrition for their children, and that their utilization of Canada’s Food Guide is impeded by its failure to acknowledge alternate parallel knowledge systems. These findings can be applied to the development of social and health policy aimed at improving cultural competency in healthcare and nutrition education and at ameliorating the income constraints leading to household food insecurity. | PhD | food, nutrition, health, educat, women, urban | 1, 3, 4, 5, 11 |
| Andres, Heather | Peltier, W. R. | Northern High Latitude Climate Variability of the Last Millenium | Physics | 2016-03 | This work explores the causes of northern high-latitude climate variations over the last millennium, and industrial and future periods. Attribution studies are performed on a suite of global climate simulations, and four historical reconstructions of Greenland surface temperatures and precipitation (two of which are new to this work). The simulations followed the protocols of the Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project 3 and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5. At least half of the multi-decadal variability in simulated Greenland climate variations over the last millennium is reproduced by a linear, empirically-generated model including terms for volcanic emissions, solar insolation changes (including total solar irradiance and orbital components) and an index associated with latitudinal shifts in the North Atlantic jet. Empirical model parameters are obtained by regressing simulated Greenland temperatures and precipitation against time series for each of the response variables. Greenhouse gas radiative forcing changes are unimportant to simulated Greenland conditions over the last millennium, although they dominate after the mid-20th century. Most of the historical Greenland climate reconstructions are restricted to the industrial period, due to a lack of spatially-comprehensive climate records. They exhibit substantial differences in the timing, phasing and amplitudes of past climate variations, due to regional sensitivities in the source data and the reconstruction methodologies. Reconstructions indicate that Greenland temperatures did not begin to follow hemispheric greenhouse gas warming patterns until the mid-1990s. This discrepancy indicates either that the warming hiatus was associated with internal climate variability, or that the simulations are missing processes important to Greenland climate. For example, indirect effects of anthropogenic aerosols are not captured in the climate model employed here. All of the external climate forcings included in the empirical models initiate significant simulated climate responses in a number of northern hemispheric regions over the last millennium. These forcing responses are not independent, however, except in Tropical regions. Particularly in the Arctic and North Atlantic, nonlinear interactions between the forcings work together to generate the transition between the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. Internal variability also plays an important role, even on hemispheric averages. | Ph.D. | solar, industr, climate, greenhouse gas | 7, 9, 13 |
| Anger, Gregory John | Piquette-Miller, Micheline | Impact of Diabetes on Drug Disposition Mechanisms in Pregnancy | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2011-11 | Over 220 million people worldwide are diagnosed with diabetes and rising prevalence is reported in nearly all surveyed populations. Accordingly, the percentage of pregnancies affected by pre-existing type 1 or 2 diabetes or by diabetes that develops during pregnancy, called gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), is also on the rise. Today, approximately 8% of all pregnancies are complicated by diabetes. Diabetes alters drug disposition mechanisms in non-pregnant subjects but the impact of diabetes on drug disposition in pregnancy has not been properly evaluated. Atypical drug disposition in pregnancy has implications for maternal and fetal health. Because liver tissue from pregnant women is not readily available, this thesis investigated drug disposition mechanisms primarily in a rat model of experimental GDM. This model consisted of administering streptozotocin, a diabetogenic toxin, to pregnant rats on gestational day 6. One key finding was that elevated circulating lipids in GDM rats competed with drugs (e.g., glyburide and saquinavir) for plasma protein binding so as to increase free drug concentrations. Another key finding was that important hepatic drug efflux transporters (e.g., Mdr1a/b) and metabolic enzymes (e.g., Cyp3a2 and Ugt1a1) were upregulated in GDM as a consequence of, most likely, enhanced nuclear receptor activity (e.g., pregnane X receptor upregulation). Upregulation of hepatic drug efflux transporters and metabolic enzymes, coupled with larger unbound drug fractions, would be expected to increase the hepatic clearance of many drugs. Consistent with this, in GDM, maternal and fetal exposure to the Mdr1 and Cyp3a2 substrate lopinavir was substantially lower than controls post-administration and data supporting enhanced lopinavir metabolite formation were obtained. Placental drug efflux transporters were also examined in this lopinavir study. Elevated placental Mdr1b and Bcrp expression was observed in GDM, which was associated with decreased fetal exposure to lopinavir (even after correcting for maternal unbound concentrations). Taken together, this thesis demonstrates that experimental GDM can significantly impact drug disposition by altering key drug disposition mechanisms. If confirmed in humans, this drug-disease interaction would need to be considered when atypical therapeutic outcomes occur in diabetic pregnancies. Data from experiments with human placentas, obtained from pregnancies complicated by insulin-managed diabetes, is included/discussed. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Angod, Leila | Razack, Sherene | Behind and Beyond the Ivy: How Schools Produce Elites Through the Bodies of Racial Others | Social Justice Education | 2015-06 | This is a study of how the elite subject is made at Canadian secondary schools. I show how the bodies of racial others are crucial to this making. This dissertation analyzes encounters with racial others both behind and beyond elite schools' ivy-covered walls. These encounters are linked through a racial process of becoming in which whiteness and elite status are inextricable. This new Canadian elite subject is the gendered global citizen of our intensified neoliberal and racially structured world. I theorize two encounters that consolidate this subject. The first is a multicultural encounter with East Asian international students behind the ivy at three southwestern Ontario elite schools. I conduct a document analysis of archival material to consider how anxiety about increasing numbers of students of color coincided with a shift to co-education. Second, I theorize a humanitarian encounter beyond the ivy between girls of an elite private school and the South African children and staff of a school they visited for the purpose of volunteering abroad. The analysis of the multicultural encounter suggests that schools are compelled to seek further encounters with difference abroad. The analysis of the humanitarian encounter reveals the micropractices that constitute the elite subject in the making, in this case, high school girls. These historical and empirical analyses are considered together with contextual information on ten elite schools in southwestern Ontario. My approach is to track the continuities and shifts that characterize elite school encounters. I do this by following routes to elite subjectivity. I theorize moral distinction as a route to elite status, and the rhetorical, discursive, and emotional structures that facilitate this process of becoming. This is a gendered process, and I am particularly interested in the making of elite femininities. This study offers three main findings. First, the processes of becoming elite both behind and beyond the ivy share a racial logic. Second, elite schools sell whiteness. Third, the volunteer abroad encounter, as part of the business of selling whiteness, reinforces students' sense of elite, racial and moral superiority. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Annau, Marion | Hadfield, Gillian | Innovation and Commercial Information: A Delicate Balance | Law | 2020-03 | Canadian law concerning trade secrets and confidential information fosters innovation by achieving a delicate balance between employer and employee interests. The rich doctrinal landscape allows for a flexible approach to the scope of protection together with a thoughtful analysis of the underlying relational expectations of the parties. The balance of interests achieved fosters innovation by protecting commercial information while concurrently facilitating labour mobility. Criminal legislation, which transfers the cost of prosecution to the state, eliminates some subtleties of case law and threatens severe sanctions, would dampen innovation by upsetting the balance of interests in favour of employer-plaintiffs. This effect has been illustrated by empirical studies of the impact of fluctuating American legal protection of commercial information on employee mobility and innovation. Until such time as there is clear evidence that civil remedies are inadequate to protect the socio-economic order of Canada, the urge to invoke criminal sanctions should be rejected. | LL.M. | labour, innovation | 8, 9 |
| Antonelli, Fabrizio | Livingstone, David W. | Workplace Learning in Secondary Schools: An Examination of Ontario's Venture into Formal Career Education | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2010-11 | Employing Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, this study will examine the origins, creation, and implementation of Ontario’s Career Studies course as it relates to existing economic and workplace practices. Specifically, two broad aspects of the course will be addressed. First, the expectations for the course will be examined to determine the general approach to workplace education as outlined in course curriculum documents and approved-for-use textbooks. Also included in this analysis will be the ways Career Studies teachers interpret and deliver course material. Secondly, this study will uncover the opportunities students have to control and empower themselves in their career development. This includes an exploration of the alternatives to current workplace and economic practices as presented in the course materials, as well as the strategies emphasized for students to adopt in their career planning. At the moment Career Studies, like other career education and guidance programs in Canada, presents current neo-liberal market and labour trends as permanent and outside the control of human agency. In response to these trends, students are expected to improve their marketability for employment through individual and competitive career-development practices, in effect distancing themselves from others through formal credential attainment and attitudinal adjustments that best suit employers. Opportunities for students to experience collective empowerment through alternative workplace and economic practices are noticeably absent from the course. This study wishes to shed light on some of the shortcomings of career education in Ontario and to propose recommendations that truly situate students as architects of their career planning. Employing Hyslop-Margison and Graham’s (2003) Principles for Democratic Learning (PDL), this study concludes that opportunities for students to critically examine and question current workplace practices, explore alternatives to the status quo, and, most importantly, understand the social elements behind current workplace and economic conditions, will better position students to control their future work lives. | PhD | employment, labour | 8 |
| Antonini, Enrico | Amon, Cristina H | CFD-based Methodology for Wind Farm Layout Optimization | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2018-11 | Driven by concerns on climate change and global warming, increasing oil prices, government support and public receptiveness, wind energy harvesting is emerging as one of the fastest growing renewable energy technologies. Most wind energy is nowadays produced by wind farms, which consist of hundreds of turbines to take advantage of economies of scale. Wind farm performance is however affected by the wakes generated by the turbines which can significantly diminish their annual energy production. Accurate wake effect predictions and reliable wind farm layout design become therefore critical aspects to the economic success of a wind farm project. The present research project aims therefore to define an innovative design framework that integrates accurate wake effect predictions for the development of the next generation wind farms as part of the strategy for promoting the transition to a renewable energy generation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provides a unique tool to simulate wind turbine wakes because of its capability to provide a complete solution for the flow field in complex configurations. Nevertheless, CFD simulations are strongly influenced by the choice of the turbulence model used to close the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. We therefore conducted an analysis of different turbulence models and their influence on the results of CFD wind turbine simulations to suggest the most suitable for such applications. Even though proper turbulence modeling is adopted, several studies showed however that the effectiveness of RANS models in wind farm simulations has not always been consistent. We therefore hypothesized this limitation to arise from uncertainties generated by the wind direction variability and proposed a modeling framework that, by accounting for such uncertainties, consistently improved the agreement of the CFD predictions with the experimental observations. To integrate the CFD models in a design methodology, we developed an innovative continuous adjoint formulation for gradient calculations within the framework of a gradient-based wind farm layout optimization. By testing this optimization methodology under different wind farm configurations, wind resource distributions and terrain topography, we showed that this unique CFD-based design framework effectively improved the annual energy production of a proposed wind farm by optimally siting its turbines. | Ph.D. | energy, renewable, wind, production, climate, global warming | 7, 12, 13 |
| Antoniou, Maria C. | Piran, Niva | Food, Eating and the Body: An Account of Women's Lived Experiences Across the Lifespan | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2009-11 | The purpose of this study was to explore women’s subjective food and eating experiences from childhood through to adulthood and the ways in which these experiences either connected or disconnected them from their appetites for food and eating. The present study used a qualitative life history methodology, the goal of which is to assess individuals’ lived experiences to construct broader contextual meaning. In-depth interviews were used to investigate food and eating experiences among twelve women between ages 25 and 44, representing diverse social and cultural backgrounds as well as current and past eating problems. Participants took part in an open-ended interview, using a series of guided questions about their food and eating experiences from childhood through to adulthood. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed for themes using the constant comparison method. Two models emerged from the data in this study that described the social factors that connected and disconnected women from their appetites and eating. The Regulating Discourses Model which outlines current ways women negotiate appetite and desire through food and eating experiences, and the Socialization through Food and Eating Model which delineates socialization processes related to food and eating during women’s development. This research may be useful for counselors, health care professionals, as well as the larger community to increase awareness on ways to maintain girls’ and women’s connection to their bodily appetites and desires throughout the lifespan. | PhD | food | 2 |
| Antoniou, Tony | Glazier, Richard H. | Health Services Utilization among Persons Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in Ontario | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2012-11 | The goals of this dissertation were to investigate aspects of the health services utilization of marginalized persons living with HIV (PLWH), including women, recent immigrants, heterosexual men and individuals living in low income neighborhoods. In the first study, an algorithm of three physician claims for HIV-infection within a three-year period was validated for case-ascertainment of PLWH in administrative databases. The sensitivity and specificity of the algorithm were 96.2% [95% confidence intervals (CI) 95.2% to 97.9%] and 99.6% (95% CI 99.1% to 99.8%), respectively. The algorithm was used to conduct a population-based study examining rates of hospitalization among all PLWH receiving care in Ontario. The introduction of combination antiretroviral therapy was associated with more pronounced reductions in rates of total (-89.9 vs. -60.5 per 1000 PLWH; p = 0.003) and HIV-related hospitalizations (- 56.9 vs. -36.3 per 1000 PLWH; p < 0.001) among men relative to women. Between 2002 and 2008, higher rates of total hospitalization were associated with female sex [adjusted relative rate (aRR) 1.15; 95% CI: 1.05 to 1.27] and low socioeconomic status (aRR 1.21; 95% CI: 1.14 to 1.29). Higher rates of HIV-related hospitalizations were associated with low socioeconomic status (aRR 1.30; 95% CI: 1.17 to 1.45). Recent immigrants had lower rates of both total (aRR 0.70; 95% CI 0.61 to 0.80) and HIV-related hospitalizations (aRR 0.77; 95% CI 0.61 to 0.96). Finally, a theoretically-informed qualitative study was conducted to characterize the help-seeking experiences of heterosexual men living with HIV. The results indicate that without the symbolic appeal of women and the social connections of gay men, heterosexual men lack the composition of capital required to benefit fully from or improve their positions within the existing HIV health and social service fields. The findings of this dissertation illustrate important disparities in health services utilization among PLWH in Ontario. | PhD | women, health, socioeconomic | 1, 3, 2005 |
| Antony-Newman, Max | Gérin-Lajoie, Diane | Parental involvement of Eastern European immigrant parents of elementary school students in Ontario | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2018-11 | This study focuses on the parental involvement among Eastern European immigrant parents of elementary school students in Ontario. Immigrant parents are shaped by their own educational experiences in home countries and face particular challenges to be involved in the education of their children who attend schools in the immigrant-receiving nations due to language barriers and low familiarity with the new school system. I collected my data through interviews with parents and the analysis of parental involvement documents in Ontario. The analysis was informed by the concepts of social and cultural capital developed by Pierre Bourdieu. I found that Eastern European immigrant parents see their role supporting children mainly in the home by emphasizing academic achievement and extracurricular activities. Interviewed parents grew up in countries with strict boundaries between school and family, as a result they often do not see volunteering and taking part in decision making in Ontario schools as meaningful for them. Although most parents possess high levels of cultural capital there was a variation in the amount of social capital available to immigrant parents. Those who managed to recreate rich social networks in the new country communicated with teachers more successfully and were satisfied with school. The critical analysis of policy documents showed that despite the shift towards acknowledging different types of involvement more value is still given to school-based activities, which makes the immigrant parental involvement less visible. The results of the study will enable educators and policy makers to pay more nuanced attention to the involvement among immigrant parents for better achievement and well-being of all children in Ontario classrooms. | Ph.D. | inclusive | 4 |
| Aoyama, Kazuyoshi | Fowler, Robert A | Maternal Critical Illness in Canada: temporal and geographic trends, predictors of outcome, and an examination of the variability in provision of critical care | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2018-11 | Objectives: (1) To identify the most appropriate models for use in predicting maternal mortality in pregnant and postpartum women; (2) to establish temporal and geographic trends in maternal morbidity, mortality and admission to intensive care in Canada; (3) to identify factors associated with maternal morbidity and death in Canada; and (4) to explore variation in admission to intensive care among Canadian hospitals for pregnant and postpartum women. Methods: For the first objective, we performed a systematic review of risk prediction models. Objectives two through four were addressed within a series of nationwide population-based observational studies using the database from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Estimated annual percent change of maternal morbidity, mortality and admission to intensive care were computed with negative-binomial regression models. Multi-level logistic regression models were employed to investigate factors associated with the outcomes. Median odds ratios was used to describe variation in admission to intensive care. Results: The systematic review revealed the Collaborative Integrated Pregnancy High-dependency Estimate of Risk (CIPHER) model and the Maternal Severity Index had very good discrimination and calibration for predicting maternal mortality. The national population-based study identified a stable maternal mortality rate of 6.2 per 100,000 deliveries, but increasing rates of severe maternal morbidity and admission to intensive care with estimated annual percent changes, 1.32% (95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.60 – 2.04) and 1.83% (95% CI 0.68 – 2.98), respectively. Severe maternal morbidity varied across Canadian regions but was highest in the northern Territories at 22.8 per 1000 deliveries. Extremes of maternal age were associated with severe maternal morbidity and mortality. For two pregnant women with similar characteristics at different hospitals, the median odds of being admitted to ICU was 1.92 in one hospital compared to another, indicating substantial variability in admission patterns to intensive care for pregnant and postpartum women in Canadian hospitals. Conclusions: In Canada, while maternal mortality appears stable, maternal age is increasing over time and is independently associated with severe maternal morbidity. There is substantial regional variation in maternal morbidity and mortality. Finally, there is wide variability in maternal admission to intensive care among hospitals and among provinces in Canada. | Ph.D. | health, innovation | 3, 9 |
| Appolloni, Simon | Scharper, B Stephen | Convergent Knowing: Explorations of a Sustained - and 'Sustainable' - Theological Reflection on Science, Environment, and Liberation | Religion, Study of | 2014-06 | Since the last half of the twentieth century, Christian theorists, theologians, biblical scholars, philosophers and ethicists have been struggling, in varying degrees, with the increasingly pressing issues that have arisen from a planetary environmental crisis and a growing inequality and persistent poverty afflicting the majority of human beings. They have tried to reconcile these emergences with discoveries from science about how our world functions, and traditional affirmations of their faith. The struggle has been daunting, marked by a litany of concerned voices that argue that one or more of the issues or facets of the debate require greater attention. In this dissertation, I investigate the writings of four Christian thinkers: Rosemary Radford Ruether, Leonardo Boff, Diarmuid O'Murchu and Thomas Berry. These authors attempt to integrate, to varying extents, environmental concerns, liberation thought, scientific discovery and traditional precepts of their faith. These thinkers, I argue, are greatly facilitated in their integration of all these aspects by the particular epistemic framework they employ when engaging their faith and science in a communal conversation. I label this framework "convergent knowing," characterized by a close and seemingly continuous relationship between these two significant ways of knowing. I suggest that "convergent knowing" could serve as a model for other Christian thinkers who are currently struggling to integrate ecology, justice, science and their faith. Evidence for this is found within the collective work of the four authors I examine, which reveals an emerging ethical vision that seeks liberation for the human and the other-than-human. I further argue that "convergent knowing" adds a new and important dimension to the religion-science debate, one that does not seem to be adequately represented by current leading typologies representing the religion-science nexus. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that there might be a larger civilizational paradigm shift occurring that underlies a growing convergence of Christianity and science. Characterized by relationality, this new paradigm is shaping how scholars currently approach science, ecology, ethics and religion. | Ph.D. | justice, ecology, environment, inequality, equality, poverty | 1, 5, 10, 13, 16 |
| Arevalo-Quintero, Olga Lucia | Kesler, Olivera | Development of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Metal Supports and Intermediate-Temperature Direct Hydrocarbon Anodes | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2018-11 | Direct hydrocarbon (DH) solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have the potential to play a role in the transition from high-polluting to cleaner and sustainable electricity generation systems. Moreover, metal-supported DH SOFCs have several advantages that could potentially increase the overall competitiveness of the technology. In this study, bi-layer metal-supported cells were developed using suspension plasma spraying (SPS). The cells were fabricated on bi-layer supports fabricated by powder metallurgy, with microstructures designed to provide a suitable surface morphology for uniform anode deposition. An open circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.105 V at 750 °C in 3% humidified hydrogen was obtained, which deviates from the Nernst potential by only 5 mV. Therefore, the bi-layer support has the potential to minimize cell defects that are known to be detrimental to cell performance. Metal-supported SOFCs containing Cu-Ni-samaria doped ceria (SDC) composites with or without additions of Co or CeO₂, were evaluated for stability against interdiffusion in H₂ at 850 °C. The interdiffusion of Fe, Cr, and Ni was studied, and three protective strategies to prevent the diffusion of Fe and Cr into the Cu-based anodes were evaluated: pre-oxidation of the metal support, application of a protective LaCrO₃ coating to the metal supports, and addition of an SDC interlayer between the metal support and anode. It was found that the most effective stand-alone method to diminish the diffusion of Fe into the anodes containing Co and Ni was the addition of an SDC interlayer between the anode and the metal support. An assessment of the feasibility of using BaTiO₃ as a catalyst for DH SOFC anodes was also performed. The microstructure and electrochemical performance of metal-supported Cu-SDC-Ni-based anodes with or without the addition of CeO₂ and/or BaTiO₃ were evaluated. Metal-supported SOFC anodes were fabricated by a hybrid suspension and solution precursor plasma spraying (SPS/SPPS) process and by SPPS. SPPS Cu-based anodes were found to have better resistance to coarsening than SPS/SPPS Cu-based anodes. The highest power density in this study was obtained for an SPPS Cu-SDC-Ni-BaTiO₃ anode, with peak power densities at 750 °C of 624 mW/cm² and 266 mW/cm² in H₂ and in CH₄, respectively. | Ph.D. | pollut | 13 |
| Arnillas Merino, Carlos Alberto | Cadotte, Marc W | Determinism vs. Stochasticity in Community Assembly Processes: The Role of Species Phylogeny and Dominance | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2019-06 | The deterministic or stochastic nature of the rules that regulate which species co-exist in a community has been long debated in ecology. This thesis aims to answer (1) if understanding the degree of determinism in the co-existence of species is more or less informative than other sources of uncertainty affecting regional biodiversity, (2) if biodiversity is important to understand ecosystem processes, and (3) if dominance and determinism are correlated. Using a landscape model I show that the degree of determinism or stochasticity (1) controls regional species richness, and (2) causes more uncertainty on species richness than land use change or climate change in the Tropical Andes. In herbaceous communities around the world, diversity is important to improve predictions of biomass productivity and litter accumulation mostly when the diversity and biomass descriptors of the communities were partitioned into legumes, forbs and graminoids. Graminoids, grasses and Carex, and one forb lineage were more likely to be dominant species than non-dominant, while more than a dozen forb lineages were more likely to be non-dominant species. The environment affected the dominant plants the most, increasing the role of habitat filtering, with a less common effect of limiting similarity; in contrast, non-dominant plants were mostly affected by limiting similarity among the non-dominants, but with no signal of habitat filtering. This pattern was observed in herbaceous systems using a local dominant removal experiment and a global observational dataset. The results show that dominant species are a more deterministic subset of species that converge towards a predictable optimum constrained by environmental conditions. In contrast, non-dominant species are better described as a diverging group of species, potentially with multiple optimums, and therefore with a less predictable response. Understanding the differences between dominant and non-dominants can improve models of ecosystem services that rely either on biomass accumulation or on diversity. | Ph.D. | climate, enviornment, biodiversity, ecology | 13, 15 |
| Arora, Paul | Jha, Prabhat | Epidemiologic Characterization of the Heterosexual Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and other Sexually Transmitted Infections in India | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2013-11 | India houses the world’s third largest population of people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) who constitute about 6% of the global HIV burden. In about 2008-9, an estimated 1.9 million [95%CI: 1.5 to 2.5] adults were living with HIV in India. The four southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu account for about 60% of estimated HIV infections, although they house only 30% of the adult population. I report that most HIV infections in infected couples in the general population of India (85.4% (95%CI: 80.0, 90.7)) were introduced by the male partner. The per-partnership transmission probability of HIV in the general population was low 29.1% (95%CI: 22.5, 35.7) compared to what has been reported for other STIs. Important theoretical facilitating factors for HIV transmission were associated with HIV infection with nearly equal effect sizes in both genders and across HIV–risk settings (multiple partnerships (OR: 2.46 (95%CI: 1.98, 3.06) and STIs (ORHSV-2: 5.60 (95%CI: 3.37, 9.33); ORSyphilis: 4.12 (95%CI: 2.35, 7.25)). The strength of association of STIs with HIV was consistent. Intervention spending on, or coverage of, STI treatment-focused sex work interventions (per 1000 total district population) was associated with a reduced annual risk of either HIV (- 1.7%, 95%CI: -3.3, -0.10) or syphilis (-10.9%, 95%CI: -15.9, -5.8) infection in young pregnant women in the high-burden southern states. A decreased annual risk of syphilis iii among young pregnant women attending public prenatal clinics in the high-burden southern states was associated with a unit increase (per 1000 total district population) of intervention spending (-0.009%, 95%CI: -0.014, -0.004), number of STIs treated (-10.9%, 95%CI: -15.9, -5.8), FSWs reached (-3.0%, 95%CI: -5.2, -0.7) and condoms distributed (-0.034%, 95%CI: - 0.053, -0.015). Male sexual behaviour (non-regular partnerships and use of female sex work) is the dominant driver of HIV transmission in the general population of south India. Ulcerative STIs were strongly associated with HIV infection in south India and interventions aimed at treating STIs and promoting safer sex practices for FSWs and their clients have resulted in reductions in HIV and syphilis incidence and prevalence in the general population of south India. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Arrandale, Victoria Helen | Holness, Dorothy Linn | Occupational Exposures and the Co-occurrence of Work-related Skin and Respiratory Symptoms | Medical Science | 2012-06 | Occupational skin and respiratory symptoms, and disease, are common problems. Workers can develop new disease or aggravate existing disease as a result of exposures at work. Many workers are exposed to chemicals that can cause both respiratory and skin responses and there is evidence that some workers experience symptoms in both systems. There is also evidence that skin exposure may lead to sensitization and the development of respiratory disease. There is very little research that has examined both airborne and skin exposures together with lung and skin outcomes. The purpose of this thesis was to further investigate the relationships between occupational exposures, skin symptoms and disease, and respiratory symptoms and disease. Four studies were undertaken to improve our understanding of these complex relationships. Results from a study of clinical patch test data determined that seven of the ten most common occupational contact allergens are also capable of causing occupational asthma and that these common occupational exposures may not be recognized as sensitizers in common reference materials. Exposure-response relationships for skin symptoms were modeled in bakery workers and auto body shop workers using historical data; significant exposure-response relationships were found for auto body workers. In two separate studies of concurrent skin and respiratory symptoms, workers did report concurrent skin and respiratory symptoms. In predictive models, subjects reporting a history of eczema were more likely to report concurrent skin and respiratory symptoms. Overall, the results from this thesis provide more evidence that the skin and respiratory systems are associated. This body of work suggests that: (1) several common occupational exposures can cause disease in both the skin and respiratory system; (2) a portion of workers report both skin and respiratory symptoms; and (3) exposure-response relationships do exist for skin symptoms, both work-related and non-work-related. Future studies need to gather detailed information about exposure and response in both systems in order to better determine the role of exposure(s) in the development of skin and respiratory symptoms. Improved understanding of these relationships will allow for more targeted and effective exposure prevention strategies and will ultimately reduce the burden of occupational disease. | PhD | worker, health | 3, 8 |
| Arviv, Tamir | Mahtani, Minelle||Leslie, Deborah | The Diverse Geographies of Jewishness: Exploring the Intersections between Race, Religion, and Citizenship among Israeli Migrants in Toronto | Geography | 2016-06 | In this dissertation, I explore how Jewish migrants who have relocated from Israel, but who are now living in the Greater Toronto Area understand, negotiate and perform their identities, belongings, and citizenship upon migration, both individually and collectively. Working from a series of forty-eight interviews and a set of participant observations at public events, I discuss how the discourses and material realities of life in Israel and in Toronto inform their attachments, identities, and claims of belonging. I illustrate the ways in which their hybrid and transnational identities, attachments, and claims of belonging challenge Euro-Zionism's homogenizing project - opening up potential for new revitalized spaces for conversations about Israel/Palestine. The empirical chapters in this study focus on the themes of diaspora, whiteness, and citizenship in an attempt to foreground the multi-dimensional and diverse nature of Jewish identity and Jewish multiculturality and multiraciality in Canada (and in Israel). Theoretically, this opens up opportunities to consider scaffolding that describes the complex multiplicity within cultures. Case studies are used to address the formation and re-formation of racial, religious, and national identities after migration, providing theoretical insights into the complex relations of multiple local racial formations to global racial formations, both historically and in the contemporary period, and their interconnectivity with other axes of difference, such as religion. In particular, I emphasize the intersection of racial formation and religious identity by foregrounding the immense diversity of Jewish identities, cultures, and racial connections. Doing so, I begin to map previously unexplored intersections between Jewish studies and critical theories of race in order to illuminate spaces for potential critical geographical analyses of these fields. This study, therefore, opens up new questions not only for future research on the "Israeli diaspora" , but also for studies of race, religion, migration, and urban space in social and cultural geography. | Ph.D. | urban | 11 |
| ARYEE, EDNA | Schneider, Margaret||Wane, Njoki | Implications of Sexual Risk Assessment for HIV Intervention Planning: The Utility of the Expanded AIDS Risk Reduction MODEL among Young Ghanaian Women | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2014-11 | ID: 10997Background Study Objective(s): Increasing HIV/AIDS knowledge alone does not stem the spread of HIV among young Ghanaian women. Rather, the solution lies in enhancing the individual's appreciation of her own risk and self-efficacy for reducing risky behaviours (Sallar, 2001). The current dissertation aims to understand the factors related to HIV/AIDS sexual risk behaviour among young Ghanaian women. In an expansion of the AIDS Risk Reduction Model (ARRM; Catania, 1990), psychological (sexual assertiveness and self-esteem), interpersonal (resiliency), and cultural variables (spirituality, cultural mistrust, gender roles, childhood sexual abuse, social health, and Africentrism) were identified to assist in the prediction of stage-specific variables at each stage (i.e., Labeling, Commitment, and Enactment) of the ARRM. Sexual risk behaviour was further examined in relationship to diverse demographic variables. Methods: Using quantitative exploratory survey and convenience sampling methods, two hundred (N=200) female participants were recruited at three institutions in Accra, Ghana. Results: Labeling: Labeling was positively related to Peer Norm. However, Labeling was negatively related HIV/AIDS Risk Knowledge and Susceptibility to HIV. Further, there was a positive relationship between Labeling and HIV Testing (at the Commitment Stage). The overall regression for the expanded predictors model on Labeling was not statistically significant. Education and age accounted for the bulk of the explained variance at this stage. Commitment: HIV testing intention was negatively related to age and marital status. However, it was positively related to education. Overall, neither the ARRM nor the expanded ARRM variables predicted Commitment. However, there was a positive relationship between Self- esteem and Commitment. Enactment: Condom Use Self-efficacy was positively related to age. Education was positively related to Enactment. For the expanded predictors, Perception of Sexual Enjoyment, Sexual Communication, Spirituality and Self-Esteem were negatively related to Enactment. There was also a positive relationship between Sexual Assertiveness and Enactment. Conclusion: Together, findings validated the Expanded ARRM as a fairly reliable model that helped in the coherent understanding of psychosocial and cultural issues that increase sexual vulnerability in young Ghanaian women. Overall, this study contributes to efforts to promote the use of culturally appropriate strategies in HIV prevention in Ghana. | Ph.D. | health, gender, women | 3, 5 |
| Asakura, Kenta | Newman, Peter A | Theorizing Pathways to Resilience among LGBTQ Youth: A Grounded Theory Study | Social Work | 2015-11 | This three-paper dissertation seeks to advance the conceptual understanding of resilience among lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) youth. Interviews with service-providers (n = 16) and LGBTQ youth (n = 19) were conducted and analyzed, using Grounded Theory (GT) methodologies. The first paper conceptualizes how participants understand the construct of resilience and the associated concepts (i.e., adversity, positive adaptation). Three relevant categories are reported: (1) facing adversities across contexts, (2) growing up in the age of marriage equality, and (3) “doing well” while still in pain. Provided extensive adversities LGBTQ youth experience, participants endorsed a context-dependent understanding of “doing well” (e.g., “battling through”) rather than using normative criteria of health and wellbeing (e.g., absence of psychopathologies, presence of socially desirable outcomes). The second paper reports a substantive theory of resilience emerged in the GT study. The core category, paving pathways through the pain, suggests that youth build on their experiences of marginalization and the concomitant emotional pain to carve out personalized pathways to resilience. All youth employed the following five processes: (1) navigating safety across contexts, (2) asserting personal agency, (3) seeking and cultivating meaningful relationships, (4) un-silencing social identities, and (5) engaging in collective healing and action. While the degree of which and the ways in which youth made use of these resilience processes varied, youth focused their attention to the areas of their individual life circumstances that inflicted emotional pain and engaged more deliberately in one or more of the resilience processes related to the origins of pain. In the third paper, results of the GT study, along with other relevant literature, inform the application of a social ecological framework of resilience in working with LGBTQ youth. This framework conceptualizes that the role of social workers is to promote not only the internal capacity of LGBTQ youth but also the capacity of their social ecologies to better support them. A youth case is discussed to inform interventions across the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of practice. Discussion sections for each paper and the dissertation conclusion summarize study results, limitations, and implications for social work and further research. | Ph.D. | equality, queer | 5 |
| Ashworth, Melody Kelly | Joseph, M Ducharme | Teacher Training in a Proactive Classroom Management Approach for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2014-11 | As the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) increases, more children with ASD present for services in public school classrooms. Due to the unique social and communication difficulties that characterize this population, these children often exhibit challenging behaviours such as non-compliance, verbal and physical aggression and high levels of off-task responses. Compounding these concerns, teachers and classroom support staff are typically inadequately trained in evidence-based behavioural intervention strategies for such children, particularly those suited for class-wide intervention that are easy to implement and fit within a school setting.The current study addressed these concerns by examining the effectiveness of Errorless Classroom Management (ECM), a proactive classroom management teacher training package, in three self-contained classrooms and a total of 7 students ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 8. In a multiple baseline across classrooms design, teachers and classroom support staff were taught a range of proactive skills that included use of moderating support strategies, reinforcement of prosocial student behaviours, and systematic fading of supports and reinforcement. Teachers and classroom support staff were also trained in how to use these classroom management strategies to build four core student skills: compliance, acquiescence, on-task behaviour, and communication skills. After training, classroom staff showed increased use of proactive classroom management strategies and reduction in use of reactive disciplinary strategies. Results also indicated moderate improvements in student compliance, on-task skills and prosocial behaviours, as well as covariant reductions in challenging behaviours. Improvements in staff and student behaviour were maintained at the 5 month follow-up. Most staff members indicated satisfaction with the training and showed an overall moderate reduction in stress levels related to classroom management. The outcomes of the current study are encouraging and suggest that ECM is suitable as a proactive classroom management approach for self-contained ASD special education classrooms and may fit well as a curriculum within a school wide positive behaviour support framework. The in-service training was completely non-aversive, inexpensive, and brief, making it a positive and cost-efficient approach to classroom management. Teacher training in ECM could potentially decrease the number of students with ASD who require intensive supports in the school system. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Aubrecht, Catherine (Katie) | Titchkosky, Tanya | Surviving Success, Reconciling Resilience: A Critical Analysis of the Appearance of Student ‘Mental Life’ at one Canadian University | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2012-11 | This dissertation addresses the university student as a figure of mental health and illness. Drawing on the methods and theories of disability studies, interpretive sociology, critical, feminist and queer theory, as well as hermeneutically oriented phenomenology, my work explores the social production of this student figure or type – variously depicted as ‘ invisible’, ‘maladjusted’, ‘stressed’, ‘difficult’, sensitive’, ‘resilient’, ‘narcissistic’, and extraordinarily ‘ordinary’. This figure is addressed as a means of revealing contradictory understandings of the relationship between success and survival, as this relationship appears in the ordinary daily life of the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The social and historical significance of the contemporary University’s Student Life Programs and Services is analyzed with a view to reveal the Western cultural values and practices which organize consciousness of success as a necessary condition of contemporary existence. Special attention is paid to the cultural production of knowledge concerning university student ‘mental life’, the appearance of which is located at the interstices of colonialism, global health policy, institutional ‘best practices’, cultural mores and folkways, and embodied experiences. I dwell with this appearance as an occasion to engage the materiality of Western mythologies of resilience, and with them the meaning of human agency under neoliberal governance. This engagement examines the productive power of the disciplinary and institutionalized ‘language of mental illness’ through a genealogy of the University of Toronto, a textual analyses of the University’s Student Life Programs and Services literature, and a discursive analysis of open-ended interviews with student services representatives which seeks both to understand and transgress conventional interpretations of the structure of Student Life. I demonstrate how University presentations of student bodies, minds and senses perceived to be lacking in ‘ordinary order’, can be reconceived as sites to reflect on the paramount presence of psychiatric knowledge in interpretations and responses to embodied difference within the university setting. Overall, this dissertation seeks to disrupt unexamined relations to the meaning of student types; and in the process, display how normative relations to the student as a figure of mental health and illness needs is currently and historically organized and socially achieved. | PhD | health, gender | 3, 5 |
| August, Martine Jade | Walks, Alan | Speculating Social Housing: Mixed-Iicome Public Housing Redevelopment in Toronto's Regent Park and Don Mount Court | Geography | 2014-06 | This dissertation develops a multi-dimensional critique of the globally popular "socially mixed" public housing redevelopment approach, drawing on tenant experiences in Toronto's Regent Park and Don Mount Court communities. Socially mixed redevelopment involves the demolition of modernist public housing and its replacement with mixed-income, mixed-use communities; usually redesigned in a neo-traditional style and achieved via public-private partnership. This dissertation addresses three research questions and goals. First, it examines the impacts of redevelopment on tenants, who benefit from much-needed investment but endure hardship associated with relocation, gentrification, and displacement. Second, it critically examines core theoretical and planning ideas (`deconcentration' and `social mix') that serve to justify mixed-income redevelopment. These discourses rest on problematic core assumptions, and promote policies that - as I discover in a meta-analysis of nearly 200 empirical studies - do not deliver on their promises. Third, this research offers a political-economic critique of the significance and future impacts of redevelopment, placing tenant experiences in the context of local, state, and global economic restructuring. Redevelopment is presented as an example of what I call "speculative social welfare," a new and increasingly popular approach for financing former welfare state provisions in the context of global neoliberalism. Speculative social welfare replaces state expenditure with profits derived from gentrification and real estate speculation, relies on the market to allocate former welfare state provisions, entails reduced investment, and intensifies existing patterns of socio-spatial polarization. This research is based on qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews, ethnographic participant observation, and textual analysis. My analysis of redevelopment in Toronto reveals that financial motivations drive policy, trumping loftier planning, design, and equity-oriented goals. From pre-move tenant interviews, I develop a counter-narrative that challenges stigmatizing pro-revitalization rhetoric, and highlights `real' problems in Regent Park that redevelopment is ill-suited to address. Post-move interviews reveal that `old' problems are being reproduced in the mixed community, and highlight the negative political and social impacts of gentrification and displacement. My analysis of Don Mount Court points to the paradoxical outcomes of "New Urbanist" design, and challenges the `myth' of the benevolent middle class in a landscape marked by deeply uneven power relations. | Ph.D. | urban | 11 |
| Avendano, Carlos Enrique | Cowling, Sharon A. ||Finkelstein, Sarah A. | Natural and Cultural Landscape Evolution during the Late Holocene in North Central Guatemalan Lowlands and Highlands | Geography | 2012-06 | Paleoecology has been only in recent decades applied to Mesoamerica; this thesis provides new records of paleoenvironmental changes in Guatemala. Paleoecological reconstructions are developed based mainly on pollen in the Lachuá lowlands and Purulhá highlands of the Las Verapaces Region. For the first time, quantitative vegetation and climate analyses are developed, and plant indicator taxa from vegetation belts are identified. Changes in vegetation are explained partially by elevation and climatic parameters, topography, drainage divides, and biogeography. Pollen rain and indicator plant taxa from vegetation belts were linked through a first modern pollen rain analysis based on bryophyte polsters and surface sediments. The latter contain fewer forest-interior plant taxa in both locations, and in the highlands, they contain higher local pollen content than in the lowlands. These calibrations aided vegetation reconstructions based on fossil pollen in sediment records from the Lachuá and Purulhá regions. Reconstructions for the last ~2000 years before present (BP) were developed based on fossil pollen from cores P-4 on a floodplain in Purulhá, and L-3, a wetland in Lachuá. Core P-4 suggests that Mayan populations developed a system of agricultural terraces in a former paleolake-swamp environment, which was abandoned at the time of the Spanish Conquest (~400 BP). Core L-3 indicates the abandonment of Mayan “Forest Gardens” at the time of the early Postclassic. These gardens likely prevailed during the Classic period (~300-1100 yrs BP) at the outskirts of the ancient city of Salinas de los Nueve Cerros. Following abandonment, forest recovery took place for about 800 yrs. Cultural factors are found to be more important in determining vegetation dynamics in this region, since no clear evidence of climate forcing was found. The P-4 and L-3 cores provide likely evidence that Mayan populations were, contrary to other evidence, innovative landscape managers. Scenarios in the Las Verapaces Region have been drastically modified in recent times (e.g. after the European Conquest), as suggested by pollen evidence in the top of both P-4 and L-3 cores, possibly due mostly to modern large scale natural resources exploitation, which represent environmental threats greater than any seen in the last ca. 2000 years. | PhD | natural resources, environment, forest, ecology | 12, 13, 15 |
| Axler, Renata Emily | Miller, Fiona A | Commercialization, Collaboration and Conflict of Interest: An Institutional Work Analysis of Academic Entrepreneurship in Canada | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2015-06 | Recent health research and innovation policies have encouraged academic biomedical scientists to engage research commercialization and collaborations with the health products industry. These activities of `academic entrepreneurship' have been valued for their ability to produce social, economic, and health impacts. However, these initiatives have also been met with concern for their potential to create conflicts of interest. This study examines how publicly-funded academic biomedical scientists in Canada value the activities of academic entrepreneurship and manage conflict of interest concerns. Drawing on neo-institutional theories, this research explores the institutional logic of entrepreneurial science, and the micro-level negotiations of `institutional work' conducted by academic entrepreneurs in legitimizing entrepreneurial initiatives. This mixed-methods study draws from a national survey of publicly-funded biomedical researchers (n = 1,618), and in-depth interviews with 24 academic entrepreneurs and 14 trainees. Analyses indicate that the institutional logic of entrepreneurial science tends to be positioned as distinct to academic science, though this logic is heterogeneous. Exploring entrepreneurial scientists' institutional work in valuing and navigating entrepreneurial activities, normative value is generated in these activities through proposals of their contributions to scientific processes and downstream clinical and societal impacts. Entrepreneurial scientists simultaneously claim adherence to academic norms, and use these to legitimize their entrepreneurial engagements. In navigating entrepreneurial activities, entrepreneurial scientists engage in strategies to maintain academic activities alongside entrepreneurial ones, and claim to avoid conflicts of interest. In an environment of overall skepticism and uncertainty about academic entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial scientists engage in institutional work processes of change-through-maintenance, where appeals to the maintenance of academic norms serve to legitimize entrepreneurial activities. As entrepreneurial initiatives proceed in academic biomedical science and are legitimized by entrepreneurial scientists, this study calls for a need to scrutinize and regulate these initiatives, especially as potential conflicts of interest and their impacts tend to be obfuscated. | Ph.D. | health, innovation, industr | 3, 9 |
| Ayerst, Stephen | Restuccia, Diego | Essays in Macroeconomic Growth | Economics | 2020-06 | The innovation of new technologies is fundamental for driving aggregate economic growth. The spread (or lack of) of these technologies across countries helps explain growth in developing countries and why large productivity gaps persist. My thesis studies the contribution of technological progress and diffusion for explaining cross-country productivity gaps and aggregate growth. The first chapter studies how the diffusion of new technologies affects growth. I develop a model of endogenous growth, in which firms decide how to invest in the adoption of a new technology and innovation. Knowledge embodied in products is more complementary to future innovations using the same technology. Consequently, as firms adopt the new technology it becomes harder to innovate with the old technology. I calibrate to empirical evidence using patent data on the diffusion of information-communication technology (ICT). Diffusion is driven by adoption early on (about 1/3) and innovation later (about 2/3). Despite large firm-level gains from adoption, aggregate growth falls by 15% over the transition because firms scale back innovation. The second chapter studies how institutional distortions prolong the adoption of new technologies in developing countries. I build a model in which firms choose technology and resource inputs given their underlying productivity and exposure to the institutional environment. I calibrate to US data on the distribution of employment and adoption pattern of new technologies. Increasing distortions to be consistent with low-income countries increases the adoption lag of new technologies by 19 years (43% of the data) and decreases productivity by 65%. The third chapter (with Faisal Ibrahim, Gaelan MacKenzie and Swapnika Rachapalli) studies the role of knowledge embodied within traded products for diffusion. We use patent data to construct a measure of embodied technology. Using this measure, we find that increases in high-knowledge traded goods are associated with higher productivity and R\ growth. To quantify the importance of this channel, we develop an endogenous growth model with trade and knowledge links. We find that a large fraction of long-run growth is attributable to spillovers with developing countries benefiting relatively more. | Ph.D. | innovation, industr, economic growth, employment | 8, 9 |
| Ayyavoo, Gabriel Roman | Pedretti, Erminia | Using Online Pedagogy to Explore Student Experiences of Science-technology-society-environment (STSE) Issues in a Secondary Science Classroom | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2013-06 | With the proliferation of 21st century educational technologies, science teaching and learning with digitally acclimatized learners in secondary science education can be realized through an online Science-Technology-Society-Environment (STSE)-based issues approach. STSE-based programs can be interpreted as the exploration of socially-embedded initiatives in science (e.g., use of genetically modified foods) to promote the development of critical cognitive processes and to empower learners with responsible decision-making skills. This dissertation presents a case study examining the online environment of a grade 11 physics class in an all-girls’ school, and the outcomes from those online discursive opportunities with STSE materials. The limited in-class discussion opportunities are often perceived as low-quality discussions in traditional classrooms because they originate from an inadequate introduction and facilitation of socially relevant issues in science programs. Hence, this research suggests that the science curriculum should be inclusive of STSE-based issue discussions. This study also examines the nature of students’ online discourse and, their perceived benefits and challenges of learning about STSE-based issues through an online environment. Analysis of interviews, offline classroom events and online threaded discussion transcripts draws from the theoretical foundations of critical reflective thinking delineated in the Practical Inquiry (P.I.) Model. The PI model of Cognitive Presence is situated within the Community of Inquiry framework,encompassing two other core elements, Teacher Presence and Social Presence. In studying Cognitive Presence, the online STSE-based discourses were examined according to the four phases of the P.I. Model. The online discussions were measured at macro-levels to reveal patterns in student STSE-based discussions and content analysis of threaded discussions. These analyses indicated that 87% of the students participated in higher quality STSE-based discussions via an online forum as compared to in-class. The micro-level analysis revealed students to attain higher cognitive interactions with STSE issues. Sixteen percent of the students’ threaded postings were identified in the Resolution Phase 4 when the teacher intervened with a focused teaching strategy. This research provides a significant theoretical and pedagogical contribution to blended approach to STSE-based secondary science education. It presents a framework for teachers to facilitate students’ online discussions and to support learners in exploring STSE-based topics. | PhD | innovation | 9 |
| Azimi, Yaldah | Farnood, Ramin ||Allen, Grant | The Effect of Physicochemical Properties of Secondary Treated Wastewater Flocs on UV Disinfection | Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry | 2013-11 | The microbial aggregates (flocs) formed during secondary biological treatment of wastewater shield microbes from exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light, and decrease the efficiency of disinfection, causing the tailing phenomena. This thesis investigates whether the formation of compact cores within flocs induces higher levels of UV resistance. Moreover, it investigates the effect of secondary treatment conditions on the physicochemical properties of flocs’, effluent quality, and UV disinfection performance. Compact cores were isolated from the flocs using hydrodynamic shearing. The UV dose response curves (DRC) were constructed for flocs and cores, and the 53-63 μm cores showed 0.5 log less disinfectability, compared to flocs of similar size. Based on a structural model developed for the UV disinfection of flocs, floc disinfection kinetics was sensitive to the core’s relative volume, their density, and viability. The UV disinfection and floc properties of a conventional activated sludge (CAS) system, and a biological nutrient removal (BNR-UCT) system, including both biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal, was compared. The 32-53 μm flocs and the final effluent from the BNR-UCT reactor showed 0.5 log and 1 log improvement in UV disinfectability, respectively, compared to those from the CAS reactor. The BNR-UCT flocs were more irregular in structure, and accumulated polyphosphates through enhanced biological phosphorus removal. Polyphosphates were found to be capable of producing hydroxyl radicals under UV irradiation, causing the photoreactive disinfection of microorganisms embedded within the BNR-UCT flocs, accelerating their UV disinfection. Comparing the UV disinfection performance and floc properties at various operating conditions showed that increasing the operating temperature from 12 ºC to 22 ºC, improved the UV disinfection of effluent by 0.5 log. P-Starved condition, i.e. COD:N:P of 100:10:0.03, decreased the average floc size and sphericity, both by 50%. Despite the higher effluent turbidity of the P-Starved reactor, the final effluent’s UV disinfection improved by at least 1 log compared to the P-Normal and P-Limited conditions. The improvement in the floc and effluent disinfectability were accompanied by a decrease in floc sphericity and a decrease in the number of larger flocs in the effluent, respectively. | PhD | waste | 12 |
| Azzopardi, Corry | Allagia, Ramona | The Discursive Construction of Gendered Attributions of Blame for Child Sexual Abuse: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Maternal Failure to Protect in Child Welfare Policy and Practice | Social Work | 2015-11 | Nonoffending mothers of children who have been sexually victimized have historically borne the burden of blame in professional and public discourse. Notwithstanding strong empirical evidence to the contrary, attributions of maternal culpability for the inception and maintenance of abuse dynamics have been socially manufactured through hegemonic paradigms of deficient mothering. While insinuations of conscious or unconscious maternal collusion may have dissipated since early psychoanalytic and family systems eras, the legacy of mother-blame lives on in present day child welfare policies and practices through the ideologically- and institutionally-entrenched doctrine of failure to protect. With the intent of unearthing gender-based power asymmetries in contemporary child welfare system responses to child sexual abuse, this doctoral study applied feminist critical discourse analysis to investigate discursive constructions of blame and failure to protect, as enacted, reinforced, and resisted through the powerful language of child welfare policy and practice texts. In this multimodal, problem-oriented, social advocatory approach to critical social science research, descriptive, interpretive, and explanatory analyses of semiotic data were conducted to expose transparent and opaque orders of discourse that legitimize particular relations of power and authority in child welfare operating to the detriment of women and children. Anchored in neoliberal modes of governing, child-centric notions of best interests, and hierarchical structures of power, this study uncovered dominant ideologies of gender and motherhood that function to construct women as the embodiment of sexual abuse risk, target of scrutiny and blame, and primary agent of change. Judged against naturalized schemas of good mothering in isolation of subjective lived experiences, social locations, and material conditions, failure to protect standards have an inherently disproportionate and troubling effect on women, particularly marginalized women who endure intersecting sources of oppression and adversity. Consequent formulations of child sexual abuse as a corollary of maternal inadequacies and defective instincts wrongly, albeit effectually, deflect the gaze away from sexual abuse perpetrators, nonoffending fathers, unresponsive institutions, and profound social injustices. Mothers are fundamental to the collective goal of promoting children’s safety and recovery in the aftermath of sexual abuse. Prevailing child welfare narratives that blame and shame paradoxically impede maternal capacities for support and protection and, thus, compromise children’s best interests. Gendered child welfare discourse has proven itself to be remarkably impervious to change. This study effectively problematized and destabilized its stronghold on child welfare policy and practice by unmasking and denaturalizing the ideological content of textually mediated discourses, building a persuasive case for social and institutional reform grounded in a solid epistemic and evidentiary foundation, and proposing progressive avenues for discursive resistance, negotiation, and transformation. | Ph.D. | women, gender, institution | 5, 16 |
| Bachmann, Christian | Roorda, Matthew J||Kennedy, Chris | Analyzing the Effects of Changing Global Trade Patterns on Domestic Freight Systems | Civil Engineering | 2015-12 | Global trade patterns are continuously changing as economies and trade policies develop and interact. Recent developments and forecasts suggest changes in such patterns are likely to continue. Global trade patterns ultimately manifest themselves in freight flows on global and domestic transportation systems, but the translation of economic flows into transportation patterns is not straightforward. Moreover, while countries may benefit from global trade, the transportation impacts are felt locally, as passenger and freight movements compete for domestic infrastructure capacity.This thesis introduces a joint transportation and trade modelling framework to analyze the effects of changing global trade patterns on domestic freight operations. A unique multi-scale modelling framework confronts the notion that it is convenient but unrealistic to draw a geographic boundary around the economy and freight transportation system. Innovative harmonization, transformation, estimation, and optimization-based methods are developed to jointly model trade at the global, national, and regional levels. Multinomial logit (MNL) models are used to include the influence of transportation disutility in global trade choice behaviours, extending the multi-scale model into the domain of random-utility-based multi-regional input-output (RUBMRIO) models, which are first comprehensively introduced and reviewed.To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, a Canada-centric model was developed that includes forty-eight countries, Canada's ten provinces and three territories, and Ontario's eleven economic regions. Validation results show that it is possible to link spatial scales with a reasonable degree of accuracy. And while Canada's industrial outputs are the sum of its provincial and regional outputs, individual provinces and regions are not just microcosms of the larger country's behaviour. Example applications of food and paper product demand shocks from the United States, as well as doubling and halving of global transportation costs, demonstrate that the economic impacts from scenarios related to global trade and their implications for freight demand and traffic patterns differ for each province of Canada and region of Ontario. | Ph.D. | trade, industr, infrastructure | 9, 10 |
| Badali, MattheW Anthony | Zilman, Anton | Extinction, Fixation, and Invasion in an Ecological Niche | Physics | 2019-11 | The competitive exclusion principle postulates that due to abiotic constraints, resource usage, inter-species interactions, and other factors, ecosystems can be divided into ecological niches, with each niche supporting only one species in steady state. Seemingly in conflict with this principle, remarkable biodiversity exists in biomes such as the human microbiome, the ocean surface, and every speck of soil. Despite their importance in human health and conservation biology, the long term dynamics, diversity, and stability of communities of multiple interacting species that occupy similar niches are still not fully understood. Biodiversity decreases as species go extinct and increases as new species establish themselves, and both extinction and invasion are moderated by interactions with other species. Classically, the theory of niches describes biodiversity, as relatively static. More recently popular, neutral theory models biodiversity as a balance of successive extinctions and invasions. Stochastic fluctuations allow mathematical models, like the neutral Moran model, to exhibit extinction. Stochasticity also connects neutral and niche theories, with Moran dynamics being one limit of a Lotka-Volterra model. The extinction times in the neutral and niche limits are qualitatively different, indicative respectively of exclusion and coexistence of two species, yet the transition between these limits has not been fully investigated. I identify the nature of the transition by calculating the mean extinction time with an arbitrarily accurate technique, discovering that competing species can coexist unless their ecological niches entirely overlap, which implies that extinction and loss of biodiversity is less common than predicted by neutral models. Biodiversity is also maintained by new species entering the system, a process I represent with a single invader in the Lotka-Volterra model and repeated immigrants into the Moran model. I demonstrate that greater niche overlap leads to longer invasion times, and less likelihood of success of an invasion attempt. With the Moran model I find the critical immigration rate at which immigrants are likely to maintain their presence in the system. | Ph.D. | biodiversity | 15 |
| Badr, Mario Jean | Enright Jerger, Natalie | New Tools for Evaluating Parallel and Heterogeneous Architectures | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2020-06 | Computer architecture is entering its second golden age. The number of servers worldwide is estimated to be ten million. The number of mobile devices in the world now exceeds two billion. But with the decline of technology scaling, performance improvements from shrinking transistors has dwindled. The world now turns to innovations in computer architecture for increased performance. A fundamental aspect of computer architecture is evaluating tradeoffs between design points. Evaluating these trade-offs is becoming more difficult due to the increased complexity of the hardware and applications. Traditional methods for evaluation are useful but limiting. In this dissertation, we propose to remove these limitations by complementing traditional tools with two new ones: Rhythm and Mocktails. The traditional method of simulating parallel systems is limiting for two main reasons. First, only a small sample of a workload’s execution is considered. Second, the input to the application has been reduced in size by orders of magnitude. Rhythm removes these limitations by modeling only the key interactions between the application, system software, and hardware, producing performance estimates in seconds or minutes for full runs of a benchmark with realistic inputs. We validate the fidelity of Rhythm’s estimates to measurements of workloads running on two real systems. Rhythm helps architects gain valuable insights on the performance of parallel architectures in the early stages of design, guiding them toward the design points that should be evaluated in more detail. The rapid evolution of mobile computing has led to a significant degree of heterogeneity in the hardware. The heterogeneity stems from domain-specific accelerators, which limits academic research because these accelerators (and their workloads) are proprietary. Mocktails removes this limitation for architects exploring the memory hierarchy by statistically modeling the memory access behaviour of compute devices without making assumptions about the hardware or workload. We validate the fidelity of Mocktails experimentally for caches and main memory. Architects can use Mocktails in their simulations to mimic the behaviour of a compute device, making the tool a useful conduit between industry and academia. | Ph.D. | innovation | 9 |
| Badwall, Harjeet | Razack, Sherene | Can I Be a Good Social Worker? Racialized Workers Narrate their Experiences with Racism in Every Day Practice | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2013-06 | Social work imagines itself as a site of goodness and justice. My thesis illustrates the ways in which commitments to the profession’s social justice-oriented ideals are ruptured when racialized social workers name the operation of racism within everyday sites of professional practice. I show how colonial and imperial constructions of helping (moral superiority and goodness) continue to shape the hegemonic scripts about the role and practices of social work, reinscribing white dominance in social work knowledge production. Historically, racialized bodies have been constituted as Others, subjects to be regulated, controlled and ‘saved’ within the colonial project. I examine the dilemmas that emerge when racialized Others become the helpers and attempt to perform a normative identity that is constructed through white dominance. In this study, I provide a detailed analysis of twenty-three semi-structured interviews with racialized social workers. I trace the production of the profession’s values and notions of good practice within their narratives. I specifically explore the moments in which ‘good’ practice and commitments to the values of the profession break down in everyday work with clients and co-workers. Racist encounters with clients appear as overwhelming occurrences within workers’ narratives, and a complex paradox is revealed: the discursive arrangements within social work that constitute good, social justice-oriented practice, are the very same discourses that disavow the operation of racism. Within these moments workers are left questioning whether or not they can be ‘good social workers’ because the act of naming racism appears to be incompatible with their commitments to the values that shape what is recognized as good social work practice. The narratives presented in this thesis point to the trespasses, erasures and individualizing discourses that secure whiteness at the exact moments in which race is made invisible. I contend that, when workers name racism, their very presence is destabilizing to a social work profession that needs to construct an image of itself as a site of goodness. Social work must examine the colonial continuities that construct contemporary practices, and to make visible the ways in which hegemonic scripts shaping justice and goodness reinstall whiteness and collude with racism. | PhD | justice, worker | 8, 16 |
| Baergen, Alyson | Donaldson, D J | Illuminating Urban Grime: The Atmospheric Impact of Urban Grime Photochemistry | Chemistry | 2016-11 | Deposition and subsequent processing of atmospheric species on impervious surfaces leads to the formation of surface films. Most abundant in urban environments, these films, sometimes referred to as â urban grimeâ , are thought to mediate environmental processing of species through adding an additional compartment into which species can partition, facilitating transfer of atmospheric species into surface water and promoting heterogeneous reactions. In this thesis, real urban grime samples are collected and used to investigate composition, growth characteristics, and reactivity of the less studied inorganic fraction of the film. Some of the reactions that we propose include the photochemical formation of nitrogen oxides, the formation of ClNO2 from grime chloride and the re-emission of ammonia from grime. The particular focus is urban grime photochemistry as a possible daytime source of HONO to the atmosphere. While surface nitrate/HNO3 photolysis has been previously suggested as a HONO source, it has not been previously studied using real environmental surfaces. Using a combination of laboratory and field photochemical experiments it has been found that grime nitrate undergoes photolysis to form gas phase nitrogen oxides at a rate faster than has previously been reported for aqueous nitrate, gas-phase HNO3 and surface deposited HNO3 on clean glass. This chemistry is dependent on relative humidity and only involves a fraction of extractable grime nitrate. Based on these studies, urban grime photochemistry was explored as a source of HONO using a box model. The magnitude and temporal variation of this HONO source depend on the photochemical properties of the precursor including rate constant and wavelength dependence of its absorption cross-section, the source and rate of accumulation of the precursor as well as other factors such as latitude, season. | Ph.D. | urban | 11 |
| Bagha, Shaheen | Sage, Tammy | The Impact of Chronic High Temperatures on Anther and Pollen Development in Cultivated Oryza Species | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2014-03 | Rice is the leading staple for half the world’s population. Climate change, expanding populations and loss of agricultural land are projected to reduce rice yields by upwards of 30%. Significantly, rice yields decline by 10% for every 1°C increase in temperature. Temperatures ≥ 32°C can cause failure in male reproductive development and eliminate yields in some cultivars. This dissertation determined the developmental features and mechanisms associated with failure in male reproduction at temperatures of 32 °C and 36 °C in temperature tolerant and sensitive cultivars of O. sativa and O. glaberrima. Temperatures of 32 °C impaired anther dehiscence in the temperature sensitive cultivar of O. sativa by preventing septum cell wall degradation, which is essential for pollen dispersal. Temperatures of 36 °C induced abortion in pollen development either during meiosis primarily in O. sativa or at the uninucleate stage in O. glaberrima. Abortion during meiosis was associated with autophagic programmed cell death, whereas failure at the uninucleate stage of pollen development was associated with features of necrosis such as cytoplasmic shrinkage and cell wall collapse. Increased hydrogen peroxide production was detected in aborting meiocytes and uninucleate microspores at 36 °C, indicating that this reactive oxygen species may contribute to the failure of male reproductive development in rice during high temperature stress. Identification of the timing of failure in male reproductive development, and the cellular features associated with these processes in rice, form the basis for the identification of molecular mechanisms that control yield responses to high temperature stress. | PhD | production, climate, agriculture | 2, 12, 13 |
| Bagherzadeh Namazi, Azadeh | Jia, Charles||Allen, Grant | Microwave-assisted Production of Activated Carbon from Pulp Mill Sludge with White Liquor | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2014-11 | This work establishes the technical feasibility of producing a value added product ,activated carbon, from a waste stream, pulp mill sludge, using white liquor as the activating agent and microwaves as the energy source. The work also demonstrates the potential of the sludge-derived activated carbon in removing bioactive compounds in pulp mill effluents that affect fish production. Readily available at Kraft mills, white liquor is able to convert sludge into activated carbon with a specific surface area (SSA) of 650 m2/g. While NaOH in white liquor creates pores in the carbon from sludge, other two components of white liquor, Na2S and Na2CO3, inhibit the activation process. Porosities of activated carbon produced with microwave oven and conventional furnace are comparable. The use of microwaves reduces the activation time from hours to minutes. However, strong microwave absorbers, such as NaOH and KOH, are needed for pyrolysis and activation, since pulp mill sludge and wood polymers are weak microwave absorbers with tan δ | Ph.D. | waste | 12 |
| Bahry, Stephen | Cummins, James | Perspectives on Quality in Minority Education in China: The Case of Sunan Yughur Autonomous County, Gansu | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2009-11 | This exploratory multiple embedded case study investigates perspectives on education reform under conditions of minority language endangerment in Sunan Yughur Autonomous County, a minority-district in northwest China. The study included three school sites: a Yughur minority urban school; a Yughur minority rural district school, and a Yughur majority rural district school and four embedded cases: school administrators, teachers, parents and students, of Yughur, other minority, or Han nationality. Adult stakeholders were interviewed on what is important to learn in “education for quality”, and what aspects of Yughur knowledge, culture and language should be included in school curriculum as part of education for quality, while students were asked what they enjoyed studying and whether they would enjoy learning stories, poems and songs in Yughur in school. Findings include strong support among parents and students regardless of ethnicity or school site for Yughur language and culture as “essential qualities” to foster in Sunan County school curriculum, with moderate to weak support among educators ranges with some variation among sites. Three parallel visions emerge from the study of what it means today for Chinese minority student to be an educated person in contemporary China: (a) regular Chinese-medium education; (b) multicultural Chinese-medium education; and (c) maintenance bilingual education in Yughur and Chinese. The third vision envisions developing additive bilinguals who know the heritage of their minority as well as the national curriculum in Mandarin. A vision of balanced bilingualism and multiculturalism that sees heritage languages and Mandarin as “resources” is shared by the large majority of parents and students, most teachers and some administrators. Holders of other visions for local minority education largely share a “Language as Problem” orientation towards minority languages. One aim of devolution of school-based curriculum authority is to develop schools’ individuality. This study reveals three divergent models of local schooling that have developed in one minority school district: one that centres on a monolingual model of national culture, one monolingual, multicultural model, and one bilingual, multicultural model, with the latter model corresponding more closely to minority stakeholder perspectives that schools should play a stronger role in the maintenance and revitalization of their cultural and linguistic heritage. | EDD | educat, urban, rural | 4, 11 |
| Bajestani, Maliheh Aramon | Beck, J. Christopher | Integrating Maintenance Planning and Production Scheduling: Making Operational Decisions with a Strategic Perspective | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2014-06 | In today's competitive environment, the importance of continuous production, quality improvement, and fast delivery has forced production and delivery processes to become highly reliable. Keeping equipment in good condition through maintenance activities can ensure a more reliable system. However, maintenance leads to temporary reduction in capacity that could otherwise be utilized for production. Therefore, the coordination of maintenance and production is important to guarantee good system performance. The central thesis of this dissertation is that integrating maintenance and production decisions increases efficiency by ensuring high quality production, effective resource utilization, and on-time deliveries. Firstly, we study the problem of integrated maintenance and production planning where machines are preventively maintained in the context of a periodic review production system with uncertain yield. Our goal is to provide insight into the optimal maintenance policy, increasing the number of finished products. Specifically, we prove the conditions that guarantee the optimal maintenance policy has a threshold type. Secondly, we address the problem of integrated maintenance planning and production scheduling where machines are correctively maintained in the context of a dynamic aircraft repair shop. To solve the problem, we view the dynamic repair shop as successive static repair scheduling sub-problems over shorter periods. Our results show that the approach that uses logic-based Benders decomposition to solve the static sub-problems, schedules over longer horizon, and quickly adjusts the schedule increases the utilization of aircraft in the long term. Finally, we tackle the problem of integrated maintenance planning and production scheduling where machines are preventively maintained in the context of a multi-machine production system. Depending on the deterioration process of machines, we design decomposed techniques that deal with the stochastic and combinatorial challenges in different, coupled stages. Our results demonstrate that the integrated approaches decrease the total maintenance and lost production cost, maximizing the on-time deliveries. We also prove sufficient conditions that guarantee the monotonicity of the optimal maintenance policy in both machine state and the number of customer orders. Within these three contexts, this dissertation demonstrates that the integrated maintenance and production decision-making increases the process efficiency to produce high quality products in a timely manner. | PhD | production | 12 |
| Baker, Jayne | Welsh, Sandy | Girl Power, Boy Power, Class Power: Class and Gender Reproduction in Elite Single-gender Private Schools | Sociology | 2013-11 | This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the role of elite single-gender schools in the reproduction of class and gender inequalities. This is an ethnographic study of an all-boys and all-girls school in the Toronto area, combining participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and web and print school documents. I focused especially on students in their final year of high school, when the potential advantages embedded within a private school are most likely to be capitalized on. The data provide an opportunity highlight three mechanisms of class and gender reproduction. First, I explore the teacher/student relationship as a source of advantage for students and show how teachers are complicit in these negotiations. I make sense of this in the context of the schools’ belief in the importance of educating the whole child, including traits like leadership, and the university prep focus of these schools. Second, I focus on how school personnel understand their students as gendered subjects and the contradiction this presents at the all-girls school, where administrators are keen on students defying stereotypes but draw on many of those stereotypes to develop best practices at the school. Third, I analyze the university choice process of these students, noting especially how they construct distinctions between Canadian universities despite Canada not having a steep and well-known hierarchy between institutions, and how they use the established hierarchies in other countries. I bring together theories on the correspondence between the economic structure and the education system and the role of culture in reproduction, staying mindful of how these educational settings are structured and what is happening in the classroom, including how students shape their educational experiences through their actions and their interactions with others, especially teachers. | PhD | educat, gender, equality | 4, 5 |
| Baker, Leroy | Titchkosky, Tanya | Normalizing Marginality: A Critical Analysis of Blackness and Disability in Higher Education | Social Justice Education | 2019-06 | This dissertation examines the experiences of Black undergraduate and graduate students with disabilities enrolled at the University of Toronto, Canada. The study employs an intersectional framework to explore the experiences of twelve Black students in relation to interpretive categories of Blackness and disability in this university setting. Using interpretive sociology, critical Black and disability studies theories, my study illuminates the ways students navigate the everyday complexities of Blackness and disability in University life. In employing qualitative methodology, this study investigates the University of Toronto’s disability accommodation policies, practices and procedures that organize the lives of Black disabled students. In essence, my study addresses marginalization by mapping the University’s bureaucratic practices influencing students’ academic progress. In relation to this mapping, the dissertation explores how Black disabled students navigate their experiences in accessing the bureaucratic ordering of accommodation and how this influences their academic endeavours. This critical analysis reveals that the University of Toronto is failing Black disabled students through its disability accommodation policies and practices. It also indicates that the marginalization of Black disabled students is normalized through the routine orders of accommodation processes. Ultimately, this study shows how categories of “Blackness” and “disability” act to circumscribe educational opportunities for students with disabilities. These categories are typically informed by anti-Blackness and the bio-medical versions of disability generating “individual lack,” which conceals the complex ways hierarchies of power are enabled by the social construction of normalcy. My aim is to raise a collective awareness of anti-Blackness in negotiating equity in educational opportunities in universities for students with disabilities. The study concludes by discussing how the impact of colonialism and structural inequities within accounts of Blackness and disability continue to produce injustice in university settings. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Baliunas, Dalia Ona | Rehm, Jürgen | A Comparison of Two Methods of Adjusted Attributable Fraction Estimation as Applied to the Four Major Smoking Related Causes of Death, in Canada, in 2005 | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2011-11 | The main objective of the thesis was to compare two methods of calculating adjusted attributable fractions and deaths as applied to smoking exposure and four health outcomes, lung cancer, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cerebrovascular disease, for Canadians 30 years or older in the year 2005. An additional objective was to calculate variance estimates for the evaluation of precision. Such estimates have not been published for Canada to date. Attributable fractions were calculated using the fully adjusted method and the partial adjustment method. This method requires confounder strata specific (stratified) estimates of relative risk, along with accompanying estimates of variance. These estimates have not previously been published, and were derived from the Cancer Prevention Study II cohort. Estimates of the prevalence of smoking in Canada were obtained from the Canadian Community Health Survey 2005. Variance estimates were calculated using a Monte Carlo simulation. The fully adjusted method produced smaller attributable fractions in each of the eight disease-sex-specific categories than the partially adjusted method. This suggests an upwards bias when using the partial adjustment method in the attributable fraction for the relationship between cigarette smoking and cause-specific mortality in Canadian men and women. Summed across both sexes and the four smoking related causes of death, the number of deaths attributable to smoking was estimated to be 25,684 using the fully adjusted method and 28,466 using the partial adjustment method, an upward bias of over ten percent, or 2,782 deaths. It is desirable, theoretically, to use methods which can fully adjust for the effect of confounding and effect modification. Given the large datasets required and access to original data, using these methods may not be feasible for some who would wish to do so. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Ballantyne, Marilyn | Stevens, Bonnie | Maternal-infant Predictors of Attendance at Neonatal Follow-up Programs | Doctor of Medicine/Doctor of Philosophy | 2010-06 | Attendance at Neonatal Follow-up (NFU) programs is crucial for parents to gain access to timely diagnostic expertise, psychosocial support, and referral to needed services for their infants. Although NFU programs are considered beneficial, up to 50% of parents do not attend these programs with their infants. Non-attending infants have poorer outcomes (e.g., higher rates of disabilities and less access to required services) as compared to attenders. The purpose was to determine factors that predicted attendance at NFU. Naturally occurring attendance was monitored and maternal-infant factors including predisposing, enabling, and needs factors were investigated, guided by the Socio-Behavioral Model of Health Services Use. A prospective two-phase multi-site descriptive cohort study was conducted in 3 Canadian Neonatal Intensive Care Units that refer to 2 NFU programs. In Phase 1, standardized questionnaires were completed by 357 mothers (66% response rate) prior to their infant’s (N= 400 infants) NICU discharge. In Phase 2, attendance patterns at NFU were followed for 12 months. Higher maternal stress at the time of the infant’s NICU hospitalization was predictive of attendance at NFU. Parenting alone, more worry about maternal alcohol or drug use, and greater distance to NFU were predictive of non-attendance at NFU. Attendance at NFU decreased over time from 84% at the first appointment to 74% by 12 months. Two distinct attendance patterns emerged: no or minimal attendance (18.5%) and attendance at all or the majority of scheduled appointments (81.5%). The most frequent point of withdrawal from NFU occurred between NICU discharge and the first scheduled appointment; followed by drop-out following the first NFU appointment. These results provide new insight into patterns of attendance and the maternal-infant factors that characterize attenders/non-attenders at NFU and serve as the critical first step in developing interventions targeted at improving attendance, infant outcomes, and reporting of developmental sequelae. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Ballon, Anna | Berta, Whitney | Entrepreneurship in Publicly Funded Hospitals: A Multi-case Study of Privately Funded Rehabilitation in Ontario Hospitals | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2014-11 | Ontario hospital spending represents the largest portion of the health care budget. Consequently, governments and publicly funded hospitals have implemented policies and strategies to decrease health care costs on the one hand, and on the other hand, to increase revenues from non-governmental sources. For hospitals, one revenue-generating opportunity includes partnering with privately funded rehabilitation companies or creating hospital-owned privately funded rehabilitation departments. The presence of parallel funding streams (public and private) for health care services departs from the political and organizational norms for Canadian hospitals. The primary objectives of this research are to characterize the organizational relationships between publicly funded hospitals and privately funded rehabilitation departments and companies, examine their effectiveness, and understand the benefits and/or disadvantages that these relationships afford hospitals beyond those originally anticipated. This study used mixed research methods within multiple case studies. Study results indicated that Ontario hospitals have employed numerous entrepreneurial strategies to increase revenues in addition to government funding. The relationships between hospitals and privately funded rehabilitation companies/departments allowed the relationship partners to achieve mutually beneficial goals by exploring and exploiting new and existing material and non-material resources. Nevertheless, hospital leaders have encountered political, social, and organizational tensions when related to the presence of privately funded health care services in hospitals. This study contributes to organization and management science by examining the utility of these relationships and the factors that hinder or facilitate relationship success. From a practical perspective, the findings of this study are of value to organizational leaders who may wish to establish and maintain effective relationships between publicly and privately funded companies in the context of the Canadian health care system. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Balogh, Robert Stephen | Colantonio, Angela | Hospitalizations for Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions among Persons with an Intellectual Disability, Manitoba, 1999-2003 | Rehabilitation Science | 2010-06 | This thesis examines hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions among persons with an intellectual disability living in Manitoba from 1999 to 2003. Hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions are considered an indicator of access to, and the quality of, primary care. Intellectual disability can be defined as a disability originating before age 18 characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behaviour as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. Between 1 and 3% of the population has an intellectual disability. This thesis addressed three objectives: 1) To identify ambulatory care sensitive conditions that are applicable to persons with an intellectual disability; 2) To compare hospitalization rates for ambulatory care sensitive conditions between persons with and without an intellectual disability in Manitoba; 3) To identify factors associated with hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions among adults with an intellectual disability living in Manitoba. An online survey of primary care providers with experience working with persons with an intellectual disability found consensus on fifteen ambulatory care sensitive conditions applicable to persons with an intellectual disability. Large discrepancies in hospitalization rates for these conditions were found between persons with and without an intellectual disability. Controlling for age, year, sex, and region, persons with an intellectual disability were 6 times more likely to be hospitalized for an ambulatory care sensitive condition. Future research should investigate reasons for the large discrepancy in rates between persons with and without an intellectual disability. Among adults with an intellectual disability, living in a rural area (odds ratio 1.3; 95% CI=1.0, 1.8), living in an area with a high proportion of First Nations people (odds ratio 2.3; 95% CI=1.3, 4.1), and experiencing higher levels of comorbidity (odds ratio 25.2; 95% CI=11.9, 53.0) were all associated with a higher likelihood of being hospitalized for an ambulatory care sensitive condition. Dwelling in higher income areas had a protective effect (odds ratio 0.56; CI=0.37, 0.85). The results suggest that addressing the socioeconomic problems of poorer areas and specifically areas densely populated by First Nations people would likely have an impact on hospitalizations for ACS conditions for persons with an intellectual disability. | PhD | socioeconomic, rural | 1, 11 |
| Balyuk, Tetyana | Davydenko, Sergei | Three Essays in Lending | Management | 2017-11 | This Thesis studies whether financial technology (fintech) innovation and loans provided by corporate insiders can mitigate financing frictions and correct market failures in markets with asymmetric information and adverse selection. It consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the research questions examined in the Thesis and highlights its main findings. Chapter 2 studies the effect of borrowing from peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, a recent fintech innovation in lending, on the supply of credit by traditional credit intermediaries, such as banks, and the demand for credit from banks by consumers. It provides evidence suggesting that this innovation in lending affects the information environment in the credit market and increases access to credit by consumers. Chapter 3 examines loan selection by investors and loan returns in P2P markets. It demonstrates the dominating role of institutional investors in P2P lending, contrasts the loan-picking skill of institutional and retail investors, and discusses the ability of fintech lenders to accurately price and screen loan applications. Chapter 4 studies whether information-intensive debt can benefit corporations by investigating loans provided by corporate insiders, so-called related-party lending, from the perspective of corporate borrowers. It documents characteristics of these loans and shows that they are taken when the information asymmetry between borrowers and external capital providers is likely high. The findings also suggest that other debt providers regard relating-party lending as a signal of credit quality of borrowers. Chapter 5 concludes and discusses avenues for future research. | Ph.D. | innovation | 9 |
| Bance, Sheena | Stermac, Lana | Intimate Partner Violence in South Asian University Students | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2019-06 | Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a substantial problem affecting women of all social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. Although women worldwide are affected by IPV, research suggests that belief systems justifying violence against women or adherence to traditional gender roles may place some women at particularly high risk. Moreover, although women are exposed to IPV at high rates, many choose not to disclose to formal support (e.g., law enforcement) or informal supports (friends, family) due to numerous barriers. Experiences of disclosure are essential to understand since the response received after IPV disclosure is important to psychological functioning. The current study adopted an intersectional framework to examine the experience of IPV from the perspective of young, female South Asian students. Based on a mixed methods approach, the overall results indicated that women were frequently affected by psychological/emotional forms of IPV and that some of these forms of IPV were particularly meaningful within the South Asian culture. Similar to women of the majority culture, more than half of participants disclosed to informal supports while very few disclosed formally. A substantial barrier to disclosure were cultural norms about dating. Finally, while psychological health was qualitatively related to the experience of IPV, statistical analyses did not support a relationship between the response received after disclosure and psychological health. | Ph.D. | women | 5 |
| Banerjee, Kiran Meisan | Carens, Joseph||Bertoldi, Nancy | Rethinking Membership: Statelessness, Domination, and the Limits of Contemporary Citizenship | Political Science | 2016-11 | 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. | rights, justice | 16 |
| Bani-Fatemi, Ali | De Luca, Vincenzo | Genetics and Epigenetics of Suicidal Behavior | Medical Science | 2018-11 | According to the latest World Health Organization report (2012), suicide was the second leading cause of death among people. Approximately 90% of suicide victims or suicide attempters are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. Schizophrenia patients have been shown to be at an increased risk for suicide. Although many risk factors have been identified, few of these factors have a significant clinical impact on predicting suicide. Whether genetic and epigenetic alterations are potential risk factors for suicidal behavior in schizophrenia has yet to be investigated. A well-characterized sample of schizophrenia patients with a distinct suicide attempt history was recruited to evaluate the influence of genetic and epigenetic alterations as potential risk factors for suicidal behavior. Sociocultural and clinical variables were also examined. Selected genes were genotyped to test whether independently or combined, specific clinical variables and DNA variants can accurately predict suicidal behavior. Our study found no evidence that genetic or epigenetic factors have a significant influence on the risk for suicidal behavior in schizophrenia. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Banwell, Jenessa | Kerr, Gretchen | An exploration of the Role of Mentorship in Advancing Women in Coaching | Exercise Sciences | 2020-06 | Women coaches continue to be underrepresented in the coaching domain (LaVoi, McGarry, Fisher, 2019) despite the growth and advancement of women in non-sport fields (Statistics Canada, 2017). A notable strategy used to develop and advance women in non-sport sectors is mentorship and while mentorship initiatives currently exist for women in the coaching domain, we know little about women coaches’ experiences of mentorship, what they learn and how they develop through mentorship, and how they can be better supported through mentorship to facilitate career advancement. The purpose of this dissertation, therefore, is to explore the role of mentorship in the advancement of women in coaching. A mixed methods approach was used in this study, which led to the production of three manuscripts: 1) Towards a process for advancing women in coaching through mentorship; 2) Benefits of a Female Coach Mentorship Program on women coaches’ development: An ecological perspective; and 3) Key considerations for advancing women in coaching. The findings from these studies provide much needed empirical data on the role of mentorship in women coaches’ growth and advancement, and more specifically, on the importance of process-driven and group-based mentorship for women coaches, the need for greater organizational involvement and macro-level changes in mentoring women coaches, and the need to shift to sponsorship to help advance women in coaching. | Ph.D. | women | 5 |
| Bapat, Priya | Ito, Shinya | Placental Pharmacology -- Implications for Therapy in Pregnancy | Pharmacology | 2016-11 | Medication use during pregnancy requires a balance between treating a condition in the mother, and minimizing potential risks in the fetus. In recent years, it has been estimated that between 50 and 70% of pregnant women in North America will take at least one prescription medication during their pregnancy. The decision to begin or continue treatment during pregnancy relies heavily on evaluating the risk-benefit ratio, and an important determinant in this risk assessment is estimating fetal drug exposure. The use of medications in pregnant women can be especially challenging, as there is very limited safety data in pregnancy. Recently, novel oral anticoagulants have been developed and approved for clinical use. However, the information regarding their fetal safety and placental transfer in humans is unknown. We used the ex vivo placenta perfusion model to investigate anticoagulant (dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban) transfer across the human placenta. Rivaroxaban and apixaban rapidly crossed the term human placenta, while dabigatran crossed the placenta to a lesser extent. The placenta perfusion results were adjusted to account for protein binding and pH differences between the mother and fetus. We also developed a pharmacokinetic model that adequately described the transplacental transfer of anticoagulants by using data from our experiments. While the placenta perfusion model can be technically challenging, its results strongly correlate with in vivo placental transfer data. By evaluating the success rate of the perfusion model in our laboratory, we determined that establishing the fetal circulation is an important stage of the protocol. This information can be used to create a focused training program to help increase the overall success rate of this model and productivity of the lab. Drug use in pregnancy is multifactorial, and placental transfer data is important in assessing which drugs can be used to treat the mother while protecting the unborn. | Ph.D. | women | 5 |
| Baptiste, Laurelle Jno | Joshee, Reva | Stories of Racialized Internationally Trained Post-secondary Educators Re-entering their Professions | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2013-06 | This research project investigates the job search experiences of racialized internationally trained educators seeking to re-enter their professions in Canada. Previous studies have made extensive headway in understanding the job-search experiences of racialized immigrants. Specifically, some studies have demonstrated that racism is endemic to the Canadian labour-market, while others have concluded that work experience and credentials obtained in some countries are systematically undervalued in the Canadian labour-market. Further, studies have demonstrated that factors such as non English sounding names and accents can greatly limit some individuals’ job opportunities. Despite this widespread consensus, narrative accounts of job search experiences are almost entirely absent from present research. Hence, in distinction from the quantitative methods of the majority of recent studies of the subject, this work relies on the narratives of racialized immigrant educators for its principal empirical evidence. The counter narratives assembled in this work provide a unique and unprecedented insight into the experience of racialized immigrant educators in the Canadian job-market. Through interviews with racialized immigrant educators from various educational, racial and political backgrounds, this study seeks to explore the challenges that are faced by some racialized immigrants in Canada. The results of this study confirm the consensus in the existing literature, but also demonstrate that discrimination against racialized immigrants has often been greatly under-stated. The narratives suggest that racialized immigrant educators experience significant discrimination during the job search process and in Canadian society in general. Further, this study reveals the extent to which the discrimination faced by racialized Canadian immigrants is not the result of single factors—such as race, accent, non English names and culture—but is rather the cumulative and overlapping result of multiple factors of discrimination. The consequences of this discrimination lead to alienation from Canadian society, family breakdown, disenchantment, loss of self-worth and identity. Subsequently the effects can extend from one immigrant generation to the next. These results are mostly unheard and unexplored in existing literature and dominant discourse. | EDD | labour | 8 |
| Barbera, Jennifer | Chen, Charles | A Qualitative Examination of Career Resiliency in Professional Immigrants | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2013-11 | This qualitative study endeavored to interview professional immigrants in order to better understand the adjustment and career-related challenges that professional immigrants encounter when they immigrate to Canada and pursue educational retraining. The main purpose of the study was to explore retraining decisions and outcomes and uncover the factors that influence career resiliency amongst professional immigrants. It was discovered that most professional immigrants have a desirable pre-immigration career and come to Canada to provide a better standard of living for themselves and/or their children. Professional immigrants often expect that they will be able to continue in their vocational field after arriving in Canada with little or no retraining. Unfortunately, most professional immigrants encounter significant initial career barriers such as discrimination, a lack of social networks, and non-recognition of foreign education and work experience. These barriers often lead to issues such as unemployment, under-employment, unfair treatment, psychological distress and a reduced standard of living. To help cope with these difficulties, most professional immigrants rely on social support and personal actions. In particular, encountered career challenges often prompt professional immigrants to adopt educational retraining as a career-enhancing strategy. The specific retraining experiences and career outcomes of participants were explored and discussed in detail. In summary, some participants were able to re-establish a career in Canada that was as satisfying as their pre-immigration career, however, most participants were unable to establish a career that is equivalent to their pre-Canadian career status. A number of participants even found themselves’ unemployed or grossly under-employed despite living in Canada for at least six years and having completed retraining. Overall, participants in this study represented a wide range of experiences which served to guide the formation of a new theoretical model for career resiliency. In addition to accounting for the influence of individual, relational and contextual factors, the newly presented Relative Encompassment Model of Career Resiliency accounts for the influence of relative comparisons, which were found to influence participant’s attitudes, perceptions and coping abilities. The important implications for theory, policy and practice are discussed. Suggestions for future research on career resiliency are also made. | PhD | employment | 8 |
| Barclay, Arlis Lynne | Barclay, Arlis | Sex and Influence: The Gendered Nature of Canadian Political Culture During The Aberdeen Years, 1893-1898 | Social Justice Education | 2015-06 | This dissertation investigates the links between social and political life in Canada at the close of the nineteenth century through an exploration of the lived experience of four very different political wives. Building upon the important work of historians such as Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, who successfully argued that women played key, if informal, roles in the world of nineteenth century politics and society, it generates new perspectives on the role of women and their influence on Canadian political culture. Drawing on personal letters, journals, newspaper articles and columns, as well as on memoirs, reminiscences, autobiographies, biographies and popular histories, this micro-historical study adds to our understanding of the subtle, varied and idiosyncratic ways that patriarchy and liberalism made an impact on the gendered experience of their everyday lives. If these political wives played an important role in the political life of late nineteenth century Canada, politics also played an important role in the creation of the synergistic friendships that developed among these women, friendships that in turn encouraged and directed their political activity. As this dissertation will argue, the ideology of separate spheres both enhanced and constrained the ability of these women to influence political culture, not by breaking down the boundaries of gender hierarchy but by working within them, reverencing separate spheres ideology and by sometimes astutely maneuvering accepted gender paradigms to achieve a measure of political influenceThe dissertation begins with an overview of the emblematic ceremonial representation of gender and politics, provides a detailed examination of the micro-politics of social and married life to argue that women played a significant part in the construction andconsolidation of political culture in late nineteenth century Canada | Ph.D. | gender, women | 5 |
| Barnes, Dean Spencer | Bickmore, Kathy | Restorative Peacemaking Circles and other Conflict Management Efforts in Three Ontario High Schools | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2015-06 | Violence is pervasive in many schools, and current punitive conflict management approaches in schools tend to be ineffective and disproportionately harmful to marginalized students. Restorative peacemaking circles, also known as conferences, are an alternative for managing conflict designed to improve communication, help people resolve conflicts, and help repair and build relationships among individuals in schools (Morrison, 2007; Pranis, 2005). This thesis is based on theory that such relationship-building and dialogic conflict resolution practices will contribute to reductions in school violence. This qualitative, multiple-case study of the implementation and interpretation of restorative practices at three Ontario high schools analyzed student, teacher, and administrator interviews, school documents, and participant observations. Results indicate that interview participants perceived restorative peacemaking circles (and related peacemaking practices) to be inclusive and fair processes that helped to strengthen participating students' relationships with peers and adults, contributing to reducing violence. Key factors facilitating implementation of restorative peacemaking circles and peacebuilding approaches included leadership and committed staff, quality training, and implementing responsive and proactive practices. In two schools, external facilitation resulted in limited implementation of restorative practices. This reliance on external facilitators constitutes one way schools can implement restorative practices. However, external facilitation of restorative practices by only non-school staff depended on outside funding and expertise that could become unavailable at any time, without leaving behind in-school capacity. Conflict management policies in the three schools were largely constrained by a punitive regulatory framework (e.g., suspensions and expulsions), which limited these schools' adoption of restorative initiatives. Although theorists and researchers advocate whole-school proactive initiatives and conflict-learning opportunities for diverse students, sparse evidence indicated that only one (and, even less so, one other) of the three schools had implemented any proactive peacebuilding approaches. These school-based findings will help administrators, policymakers, and scholars understand how certain restorative practices can be feasibly implemented, and used to strengthen relationships (developing social capital) and reduce school violence. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Barton, Deborah | Bergen, Doris | Writing for Dictatorship, Refashioning for Democracy: German Women Journalists in the Nazi and Post-war Press | History | 2015-06 | This dissertation investigates how women journalists acted as professional functionaries in support of the National Socialist dictatorship, and later, a democratic West Germany. As a project that examines the intersections between the press, politics and gender, this study makes three contributions to the study of German history. The first is for the understanding the expansiveness and malleability of what constituted politics in the Third Reich and the nature of consensus between the regime and the population. Nazi gender ideology proclaimed that women belonged only in the private sphere. Correspondingly, Nazi press authorities dictated that women write only about topics pertaining to this area. The regime labeled such news apolitical. However, soft news from a cheerful perspective was an indispensible part of Nazi media policy: it provided the façade of normalcy and morale building under Hitler. In return for their support, the state offered women journalists a status not open to most women. The study of women journalists further unravels the draw of National Socialism for those Germans the regime deemed politically, socially and racially acceptable: increased possibilities and social prestige. The second contribution relates to the study of women in the professions, which has often been overlooked. This project demonstrates that the National Socialist regime needed female journalists and thereby emphasizes women's roles in major events. Not an insignificant number of women built diverse and influential careers in journalism both within and outside of Nazi gender parameters, often with the expressed desire of Nazi press officials. The third contribution is for understanding the cultural interchanges that affected the relationship between the Western Allies, international audiences, and West Germany in the post-war years and the ways in which gender and the experiences of women in Third Reich helped Germany move forward. In the decades after the war, women presented their professional experiences during the Third Reich in a manner that served to distance not only themselves but also the press and Germany as a whole from Nazism. By repressing, reimagining and remembering the Nazi past, the women's personal writing became a vehicle that helped West Germany build and maintain a stable democracy. | Ph.D. | gender, women, institution | 5, 16 |
| Barykina, Natallia | Ruddick, Susan | Socialist Constructions: Modern Urban Housing and Social Practice | Geography | 2015-11 | My dissertation, “Socialist Constructions: Modern Urban Housing and Social Practice,” investigates the modernist production of living space by focusing on housing reform in Weimar Germany’s Berlin and Frankfurt am Main as well as on the subsequent projects of German modernist architects working in the USSR in the early 1930s. Broadly, my work addresses questions of urban politics (primarily in Germany and Soviet Union), ownership, modernist urban visions, and everyday living practices. I take as a starting point the claim that home was central to the production of modern subjectivity, and, more specifically, that suburban public housing was instrumental in the production of Weimar modernity. By surveying a range of constitutive material and discursive elements for these new forms of settlement (including new technologies and construction methods, state and civic managerial bureaucracies, struggles over finance policies, discursive, aesthetic, and propagandistic legitimizing strategies, etc.), I look at how suburban, large scale, and publicly funded housing estates (Großsiedlung) were organized, constructed, and inhabited. Informed by a conceptual model of “coproduction,” I aim to articulate how domesticity and public housing figured in the production of modern subjects and sensibilities and to re-connect discussions of policies to understandings of the sphere of the home as a site of everyday life, paying close attention to spaces that shape and produce—and are produced by—complex networks of social practices in the modern city. I investigate the ways in which different actors (Social Democratic government, city planners, municipal authorities, housewife associations, residents) involved themselves in the construction, legitimation and provision of emerging modern organizations of space. My case studies target specific and resonant sites of coproduction of the modern home: Martin Wagner’s and Bruno Taut’s housing estate Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin; the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) in Frankfurt, which introduced the notion of “minimal dwelling”; such minimalist innovations as Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s Frankfurt kitchen; and the new industrial cities of the USSR, where German architects worked to adapt concepts of “minimal living” into a different cultural context. | Ph.D. | urban, cities, industr | 9, 11 |
| BĂŠdard Rubin, Jean-Christophe | Schneiderman, David | Precedents in Canadian and American Constitutional Culture: A Comparative Essay | Law | 2016-11 | This thesis explores the place of constitutional precedents in contemporary Canadian and American constitutional culture. The author identifies four elements that explain the relative indifference in Canada to the problem of stability and change in the interpretation of constitutional rights and freedoms: the lack of a historical constitutional narrative in Canadian constitutional culture, the lack of meaningful â super precedentsâ , the structure of the proportionality analysis under the Oakes test and the adherence to a less formalist and more openly political conception of constitutional adjudication. These elements are contrasted with the American experience in which precedents are central to any constitutional discourse. The comparison tries to make explicit how these differences are linked to different assumptions and expectations about the rule of law and the role of the judiciary in adapting the legal traditions of these two Common Law countries to the challenges of written constitutionalism. | LL.M. | rights | 16 |
| Bashir, Naazish | Ungar, Wendy J. | The Economic Evaluation of Early Intervention with Anti-TNF-α Treatments in Pediatric Crohn’s Disease | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2019-06 | BACKGROUND: Crohn’s disease is a chronic disorder in which sections of the gastrointestinal tract become inflamed and ulcerated through an abnormal immune response. Costly anti-TNF-α treatments are indicated only after other treatments have not worked. However, anti-TNF-α treatments have been proposed as first line therapy due to their effectiveness. OBJECTIVE: The primary objective was to assess the incremental cost-effectiveness of early intervention with anti-TNF-α treatment vs. conventional step-up strategy at improving the number of steroid-free remission weeks gained from public healthcare payer and societal perspectives. METHODS: A two-dimensional probabilistic microsimulation Markov model with seven health states was constructed for children with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease. Newly-diagnosed children with Crohn’s disease aged 4-17 years who received anti-TNF-α treatment and other concomitant treatments, such as steroids and immunomodulators, within the first three months of diagnosis were compared to children with newly-diagnosed Crohn’s disease who received standard care of steroids and/or immunomodulators with the possibility of anti-TNF-α treatment only after three months of diagnosis. The outcome measure was weeks in steroid-free remission. The time horizon was three years. A scenario analysis examined variation in costs of anti-TNF-α treatment. A North American multi-centre, observational study of children with Crohn’s disease provided input into clinical outcomes and health care resource use. To reduce selection bias, propensity score analysis was used. RESULT: From a public healthcare payer perspective, early intervention with anti-TNF-α treatment was more costly with an incremental cost of $31,112 (95% CI: 2,939, 91,715) and more effective with 11.3 more weeks in steroid-free remission (95% CI: 10.6, 11.6) compared to standard care, resulting in an incremental cost per steroid-free remission week gained of $2,756. From a societal perspective, the incremental cost per steroid-free remission week gained for early anti-TNF-α treatment was $2,968. CONCLUSION: While unknown, if a willingness-to-pay threshold was assumed to be $2,500 per week in steroid-free remission, early intervention with anti-TNF-α would not be cost-effective. However, there is considerable uncertainty in the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio and many patients escalate to anti-TNF-α eventually. Therefore, restrictive policies on anti-TNF-α treatment access for pediatric Crohn’s patients may want to be re-visited by decision makers. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Bassil, Katherine | Cole, Donald | The Relationship Between Temperature and 911 Medical Dispatch Data for Heat-Related Illness in Toronto, 2002-2005: An Application of Syndromic Surveillance | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2008-11 | Heat-related illness (HRI) is of growing public health importance, particularly with climate change and an anticipated increased frequency of heat waves. A syndromic surveillance system for HRI could provide new information on the population impact of excessive heat and thus be of value for public health planning. This study describes the association between 911 medical dispatch calls for HRI and temperature in Toronto, Ontario during the summers of 2002-2005. A combination of methodological approaches was used to understand both the temporal trend and spatial pattern in the relationship between 911 medical dispatch data and temperature. A case definition for HRI was developed using clinical and empirical assessments. Generalized Additive Models (GAM) and Zero inflated Poisson regression (ZIP) were used to determine the association between 911 calls and mean and maximum temperature. The validity of the HRI case definition was investigated by making comparisons with emergency department visits for HRI. Descriptive, aberration detection, and cross-correlation methods were applied to explore the timing and volume of HRI calls in relation to these visits, and the declaration of heat alerts. Finally, the existence of neighbourhood level spatial variation in 911 calls for HRI was analyzed using geospatial methods. This is the first study to demonstrate an association between daily 911 medical dispatch calls specifically for HRI and temperature. On average, 911 calls for HRI increased up to a maximum of 36% (p<.0001) (median 29%) for each 1°C increase in temperature. The temporal trend of 911 calls for HRI was similar to emergency department visits for HRI and heat alerts, improving confidence in the validity of this data source. Heterogeneity in the spatial pattern of calls across neighbourhoods was also apparent, with recreational areas near the waterfront demonstrating the highest percentage increase in calls. Monitoring 911 medical dispatch data for HRI could assist public health units carrying out both temporal and geospatial surveillance, particularly in areas where synoptic based mortality prediction algorithms are not being utilized. This previously untapped data source should be further explored for its applications in understanding the relationship between heat and human health and more appropriately targeting public health interventions. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Basta, Karlo | Kopstein, Jeffrey | Accommodative Capacity of Multinational States | Political Science | 2012-06 | This dissertation explains the extent and durability of the institutions of territorial autonomy in multinational states. Its main argument is that the viability of territorial autonomy hinges on the relative economic importance of the minority-inhabited region for the central government. If the fiscal resources of the minority-inhabited region are critical for the funding of the central government’s policy objectives, autonomy is likely to be limited and short lived. If those resources are not as crucial for the governability of the entire state, autonomy is likely to be more extensive and durable. The importance of the minority-inhabited region depends on two sets of factors. The first is the relative level of economic development of majority and minority-inhabited areas. The second is the strategy of governance adopted by the central state elites. Strategies of governance determine the extent of the fiscal burden that the central government will place on the population of the state, thereby exerting significant influence on accommodative outcomes. The theoretical framework developed in this dissertation refers to statist (high spending) and laissez-faire (low spending) strategies of governance. The framework is tested in four multinational states: the former Yugoslavia, the former Czechoslovakia, Canada and Spain. The empirical chapters combine structured-focused comparison with longitudinal case study analysis. The cases largely bear out the hypotheses presented in the dissertation. However, analysis of the cases also demonstrates the importance of minority-group influence at the central state level in accounting for accommodative outcomes. In cases where minority elites have extensive influence at the centre, attempts at limiting the autonomy of minority-inhabited regions tend to be unsuccessful. This thesis contributes to a greater understanding of the design and durability of the institutions of territorial autonomy, which have important consequences for the stability and viability of multinational states. | PhD | governance, institution | 16 |
| Bastedo, Heather | Fletcher, Joseph F. | They Don't Stand for Me: Generational Difference in Voter Motivation and the Importance of Symbolic Representation in Youth Voter Turnout | Political Science | 2012-06 | Building from Hannah Pitkin’s work on forms of representative democracy, this thesis demonstrates how differing generational expectations of political representation affect participation in electoral politics. Consistent with earlier work, it confirms that youth voting decreases when young people are less educated, less interested, or when they lack a sense of responsibility. However these factors only explain part—and not necessarily the most important part—of the younger generation’s motivations for voting. The analysis also shows that youth are markedly less likely to vote when young people feel that their values are not aligned with those of political leaders. The relationship between values—or symbolic representation—and voting remains significant and strong for young people even when the classic predictors of voting are included in the model. In fact, symbolic representation is a stronger predictor of voting than such factors as education, political interest, or the sense of responsibility to vote. This new variable is therefore important in understanding why the most recent decline in voting occurs predominantly among youth. Issue campaigns are less likely to move young people one way or another with respect to voting, as the majority of issues do not affect young people directly, if at all. As a consequence youth are left to rely on their own understanding of what political leaders actually stand for to pull them in or entice them to vote. But if the values that young people care about are not symbolically represented by political leaders and their electoral platforms, then youth will have less to vote for, and will likely just stay home and ignore elections altogether. Conversely, if political leaders make modest changes to their campaign strategies that also appeal to values—rather than strictly to interests—we could also see an increase in turnout among youth, and therefore an increase in democratic legitimacy. | PhD | institution | 16 |
| Batacharya, Sheila | Ng, Roxana | Life in a Body: Counter Hegemonic Understandings of Violence, Oppression, Healing and Embodiment among Young South Asian Women | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2010-11 | This study is an investigation of embodiment. It is informed by the experiences and understandings of health, healing, violence and oppression among 15 young South Asian women living in Toronto, Canada. Their articulation of the importance of, and difficulties associated with, health and healing in contexts of social inequity contribute to understandings of embodiment as co-constituted by sentient and social experience. In my reading of their contributions, embodied learning – that is, an ongoing attunement to sentient-social embodiment – is a counter hegemonic healing strategy that they use. Their experiences and insights support the increasingly accepted claim that social inequity is a primary determinant of health that disproportionately disadvantages subordinated people. Furthermore, participants affirm that recovery and resistance to violence and oppression and its consequences must address sentient-social components of embodiment simultaneously. In this study, Yoga teachings provide a framework and practice to investigate embodiment and embodied learning. Following 12 Yoga workshops addressing health, healing, violence and oppression, I conducted individual interviews with 15 workshop participants, 3 Yoga teachers and 2 counsellor / social workers. Participants discuss Yoga as a resource for addressing mental, physical, emotional and spiritual consequences of violence and oppression. They resist New Age interpretations of Yoga in terms of individualism and cultural appropriation; they also challenge both New Age and Western biomedicine for a lack of attention to the consequences of social inequity for health and healing. This study considers embodied learning as an important healing resource and form of resistance to violence and oppression. Scholarship addressing embodiment in sociology, health research, anti-racism, feminism, anti-colonialism, decolonization and Indigenous knowledges are drawn upon to contextualize the interviews. This study offers insights relevant to health promotion and adult education discourse and policy through a careful consideration of the embodied strategies used by the participants in their nuanced negotiations of social inequity and pursuits of health and healing. | PhD | health, women | 3, 5 |
| Bavel, Jay Van | Cunningham, William | Novel Self-categorization Overrides Racial Bias: A Multi-level Approach to Intergroup Perception and Evaluation | Psychology | 2008-11 | People engage in a constant and reflexive process of categorizing others according to their race, gender, age or other salient social category. Decades of research have shown that social categorization often elicits stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Social perception is complicated by the fact that people have multiple social identities and self-categorization with these identities can shift from one situation to another, coloring perceptions and evaluations of the self and others. This dissertation provides evidence that self-categorization with a novel group can override ostensible stable and pervasive racial biases in memory and evaluation and examines the neural substrates that mediate these processes. Experiment 1 shows that self-categorization with a novel mixed-race group elicited liking for ingroup members, regardless of race. This preference for ingroup members was mediated by the orbitofrontal cortex – a region of the brain linked to subjective valuation. Participants in novel groups also had greater fusiform and amygdala activity to novel ingroup members, suggesting that these regions are sensitive to the current self-categorization rather than features associated with race. Experiment 2 shows that preferences for ingroup members are evoked rapidly and spontaneously, regardless of race, indicating that ingroup bias can override automatic racial bias. Experiment 3 provides evidence that preferences for ingroup members are driven by ingroup bias rather than outgroup derogation. Experiment 4 shows that self-categorization increases memory for ingroup members eliminating the own-race memory bias. Experiment 5 provides direct evidence that fusiform activity to ingroup members is associated with superior memory for ingroup members. This study also shows greater amygdala activity to Black than White faces who are unaffiliated with either the ingroup or outgroup, suggesting that social categorization is flexible, shifting from group membership to race within a given social context. These five experiments illustrate that social perception and evaluation are sensitive to the current self-categorization – however minimal – and characterized by ingroup bias. This research also offers a relatively simple approach for erasing several pervasive racial biases. This multi-level approach extends several theories of intergroup perception and evaluation by making explicit links between self-categorization, neural processes, and social perception and evaluation. | PhD | gender | 5 |
| Baxan, Victorina | Gagné, Antoinette | Uncovering Roots of Diversity Conceptions in Teacher Candidates in a Concurrent Teacher Education Program: A Case Study of Teaching and Learning about Diversity | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2015-06 | With the increasing diversity of students in Canadian schools (Egbo, 2011; Gérin-Lajoie, 2008; Solomon, Portelli, Daniel Campbell, 2005), teachers are expected to have an understanding, knowledge and skills related to diversity to be effective teachers of students with often multiple and intersecting diversities. Teacher education is ever more concerned with developing programs where future teachers can develop critical understandings and knowledge of the nature of diversity and the ability to readjust and respond to the diversity dynamics in schools (Childs, Broad, Gallagher-MacKay, Sher, Escayg McGrath, 2010; Gambhir, Broad, Evans Gaskell, 2008; Gagné, 2009). This case study investigated aspects of teaching and learning about diversity in a concurrent teacher education program with a focus on the sources and influences on diversity conceptions of teacher candidates. Findings revealed multiple tensions within the teacher education program, as well as within and among teacher candidates as they learned about diversity. At the programmatic level, there was tension caused by the differences in the way the teacher education curriculum was planned, delivered and experienced. At the level of the learner, individual characteristics appeared to influence developing conceptions of diversity to the point where these overshadowed the careful design features intended to support the development of socially just and inclusive educators. Two main lenses were used to analyse findings and highlight these tensions: the conceptual change lens (Posner et al., 1982; Hewson Lemberger, 2000; Larkin, 2010, 2012) and the liberal theory (Moosa-Mitha, 2005; McLaren, 1995; Fleras, 2002). The findings suggest that in addition to the model of teacher knowledge (Shulman, 1987) and conceptual change approach (Posner et al., 1982; Larkin 2010), other concepts and theories are important to understand teacher candidates' evolving conceptions of diversity as members of a society where liberal multicultural notions of diversity are promoted through public discourses and policies. These include what Fuller (1969) calls the stages of concerns of beginning teachers; King and Kitchener's (2004) reflective judgment model of development of epistemic assumptions in early adulthood or what Dewey (1904) calls "mental movement" of a student. | Ph.D. | inclusive | 4 |
| Baxter, Joshua | Kawashima, Ken C. | Capital-nation-state: A Genealogy of Yasukuni Shrine | East Asian Studies | 2016-11 | Japanâ s militaristic past continues to haunt the present and often at the center of these debates is the site that commemorates the war dead, Yasukuni Shrine. This dissertation seeks to address the political economy of the shrine and argues that this issue cannot be transcended if the history of the development of capitalism in Japan continues to be bracketed off in favor of narrating the shrine strictly through the discourse of the nation and the state. This claim derives from the observation that Yasukuni Shrine and the development of capitalism in Japan emerge at the same historical moment and thus they must also share an underlying logic. By adding capital to the equation, it becomes evident that the shrine is at the nexus of the operation of Capital-Nation-State and thus played a role in producing the very idea of modern Japan. Using a variety of primary sources, from state documents to personal diaries and newspaper reports, the archival research reveals how the shrine, as a state institution, was shaped by economic interactions just as much as it was by state ideology. In each chapter a different aspect of how the history of capitalism intersects with the space of the shrine is examined through the themes of everyday life, commodity exchange, urban planning, and universal conscription. Key to all of these themes is the relation of political economy to space. Whether it was facilitating commodity exchange on the shrine grounds or making land transactions, Yasukuni Shrine was an active agent in shaping not only the immediate space around it, but also in forming a national space. By examining the political economy of Yasukuni, it becomes evident that the shrine played an important role in propagating various types of exchanges (whether economic, religious or political) that were essential to forming this space. Thus, the results of this project show that Yasukuni was more than just a state institution that fostered the creation of national subjects; it was a space that brought together the three social forms, Capital-Nation-State, which characterizes and dominates our current socio-political landscape. | Ph.D. | urban, institution | 11, 16 |
| Beange, Pauline E. | White, Graham | Canadian Campaign Finance in Comparative Perspective 2000-2011: A Failed Paradigm or Just a Cautionary Tale? | Political Science | 2012-06 | This thesis compares the public policies of campaign finance in Canada with those in the U.S. and the U.K. in the period 2000-2011. The majority of the Canadian literature on party finance demonstrates a belief in the efficacy and necessity of the enterprise. This dissertation suspends this disposition and offers a critical approach to the regulation of money in Canadian elections. This thesis situates the discussion of party finance regulation in the context of contending models of democracy. Campaign finance rule changes are conceptualized within a new institutionalist framework. Changes in campaign finance rules are seen as changes in incentives and are seen to work in configurations, that is, interacting with existing formal and informal constraints. New institutionalism provides the avenue of inquiry into the position of political parties on the boundary of the public and private spheres and how campaign finance regulation may shift that boundary. This thesis adopts a mixed-method approach, incorporating the results of 65 semi-structured interviews with academics and political practitioners with primary document research. This thesis demonstrates that campaign finance rule changes interact with other electoral rules, types of parties and the nation’s historic institutions. The need to meld Quebec’s statist and civil-code traditions with Westminster democratic traditions, the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the role of subsequent court decisions, and the role of Elections Canada in its political finance oversight capacity, constitute major catalysts for Canadian party finance rule changes and for understanding the impact of rule changes. Contrary to the majority of literature on campaign finance reform, this thesis demonstrates that there may be diminishing marginal returns to additional campaign finance regulations, at least in a mature democracy such as Canada. Campaign finance rules reveal preferences for different models of democracy. As such, they must be carefully monitored. | PhD | financial market | 10 |
| Beattie, Robert Graham | McMillan, Robert | Essays on the Economics of Media Coverage of Climate Change | Economics | 2016-11 | For the majority of people, media coverage is the primary source of information about important issues of the day. I explore media coverage, particularly in relation to climate change, in the three chapters of this thesis. The first chapter analyzes the divergence between the views of the scientific community and the public through the lens of media capture. I develop an objective measure of the tone of climate change coverage by creating an index which uses phrase frequency analysis to compare newspaper text with the UNâ s IPCC reports and the Heartland Instituteâ s skeptical response. The index captures the extent to which newspaper text aligns with each report, classifying text that shares more language with the IPCC report as being more environmental. Using the index and panel data on advertising spending, I implement an instrumental variables strategy and find that advertising from carbon-emitting industries increases the prevalence of skepticism and lowers the quantity of coverage of climate change in US newspapers. The second chapter proposes a model that explores the issue of media bias. The model complements the literature that discusses demand-driven (Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2006) and supply-driven (Baron, 2006) bias by showing that biased coverage can arise when neither media outlets nor consumers are biased. Instead, the bias in the model I present evolves from the premise that information is costly for media outlets to acquire. The third chapter presents an empirical analysis of competition among newspapers. Newspapers compete by taking a homogeneous input -- the news that is available to report on -- and producing a differentiated output: the coverage they provide. I study the mechanics of this process by analyzing coverage of climate change in British newspapers during the period 2006-2015. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation to classify newspaper articles by topic, I compare the prevalence of topics across newspapers. Newspapers tend to cover the similar topics at a given time, but are able to differentiate themselves based on which topics they cover most. If a newspaper usually provides extensive coverage of a topic related to climate change, it will increase coverage more in response to a news story involving that topic. | Ph.D. | environment, climate | 13 |
| Beaujot, Ariel | Loeb, Lori | The Material Culture of Women's Accessories: Middle-class Performance, Race Formation and Feminine Display, 1830-1920 | History | 2007-11 | This dissertation investigates the cultural meaning ascribed to feminine fashionable objects such as gloves, fans, parasols and vanity sets. I pay particular attention to issues of middle-class formation, the performance of gender, and the materiality of race, empire and colonialism. While these issues lie at the heart of British historiography, this project is written from a unique perspective which privileges cultural artifacts through material culture analysis. While the emergence of the middle class is typically studied as a masculine/public phenomenon, this project corrects the overemphasis on male activity by showing that middle-class women created a distinctive ‘look’ for their class via the consumption of specific goods and through participation in daily beauty rituals. Adding to these ideas, I argue that Victorian women performed a distinct type of femininity represented as passivity, asexuality, innocence, and leisure. By studying the repetitive gestures, poses and consumption practices of middle-class women, I show that certain corporeal acts helped to create Victorian femininity. This work also suggests that women participated in the British colonial project by consuming objects that were represented in the Victorian imagination as imperial spoils. As such, I argue that imperialism penetrated the everyday lives of Britons through several everyday objects. Empire building also created anxieties surrounding questions of race. Women’s accessories, such as gloves and parasols, helped British women to maintain their whiteness, an important way of distinguishing the ‘civilized’ Britons from the ‘uncivilized’ tanned colonial peoples. Overall this project showed that within the everyday objects consumed by women we can identify the anxieties, hopes and dreams of Victorians. | PhD | gender | 5 |
| Becerra, Flor Yunuen Garcia | Acosta, Edgar ||Allen, D. Grant | Recovery of Surface Active Material from Municipal Wastewater Activated Sludge | Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry | 2010-11 | Wastewater activated sludge is produced during the biological treatment of wastewater. After treating the sewage, the sludge is allowed to settle. Part of the settled material is returned to the treatment process as return activated sludge (RAS) and the excess is removed as waste activated sludge (WAS). The handling and disposal of the sludge are energy and capital-intensive treatments, with a significant environmental impact. This work studies the possibility to utilize RAS (an example of wastewater sludge) as a source of surface active agents. The results indicate that higly surface active materials can be extracted from RAS, and that the RAS extract has potential applications as a detergent and wood adhesive. The results also suggest that recovering a suite of products from RAS, a biological heterogenous source, can be technically feasible. An effective alkaline treatment was developed (at pH>12) that can extract up to 75% of the sludge’s organic matter, a yield higher than previously reported. Increasing the extraction pH increased the extract surface activity, which is linked to increasing the amount of higher molecular weight molecules and the presence of phospholipids. Increasing the extraction pH beyond 11 was also related to extensive cell lysis, increasing significantly the amount of recovered material and the surface activity of the extract. The alkaline extract has properties comparable to commercial detergents. Without further purification, the extract has a low surface tension (37 mN/m on average) and performs similarly to synthetic detergents. Further assessment of the RAS extract (insensitivity to pH, surface tension, interfacial tension) suggests that it may be suitable for commercial applications. The RAS extract can also be formulated into wood adhesives using glutaraldehyde as a crosslinker. The extract fraction with 10-50 kDa constituents at pH 9 achieves high adhesive shear strengths (4.5 MPa on average, at 30% relative humidity and 25°C) with 40% of wood failure. The adhesive strength of RAS-based adhesives is strongly correlated to its protein content. | PhD | waste | 12 |
| Beglaubter, Judith | Fox, Bonnie | Negotiating Fathers’ Care: Canadian Fathers’ Leave-taking as Conformity and Change | Sociology | 2019-06 | Despite some changes to the ways contemporary families are handling the allocation of paid and unpaid work, the path of least resistance still tends be maternal caregiving with mothers more likely than fathers to cut back on their employment or drop out of the workforce entirely. Because men typically maintain, and may even strengthen, their ties to the labour market at the transition to parenthood, offering them paid parental leave is thought to provide an important opportunity for fathers to develop the skills and sense of responsibility that are characteristic of mothers’ parenting, ultimately reducing gender inequality in families. Although leave schemes that specifically target fathers are praised for their high usage rates, there has been little research into the quality of men’s time at home. This dissertation addresses this gap in the literature by probing the time-bounded and gender-laden circumstances of early parenthood to consider the ways in which fathers’ early involvement might set the stage for their greater participation in domestic life. I do so by examining how Canadian fathers come to use, experience, and act in response to their time on parental leave. The men in this study waxed enthusiastically about the parenting skills and emotional bonds they developed while on leave. Many were so moved by the experience that they came to incorporate the values and practices of care into their identities. Yet at the same time, the allocation of leave time and couple’s subsequent divisions of housework and domestic responsibility remained gendered. Couples had to engage with gendered cultural expectations that took men’s employment for granted but allowed them greater leeway than women when it came to meeting parenting standards. Nevertheless, I argue that the transformative potential of fathers’ leave-taking should not be dismissed – even small changes to couples’ gendered roles and fathers’ identities are important in undoing gender inequality. | Ph.D. | gender, equality, empkoyment | 5, 8 |
| Behman, Ramy | Nathens, Avery B||Karanicolas, Paul J | The Management of Adhesive Small Bowel Obstruction: A Population-based Analysis of Practices and Outcomes | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2019-03 | Background Adhesive small bowel obstruction (aSBO) is a common surgical illness that is characterized by its high likelihood for recurrence. We sought to compare different management strategies during the first admission for aSBO to characterize how early management strategies effect short- and long-term outcomes associated with aSBO. Methods We developed an algorithm to identify patients admitted to hospital for their first episode of aSBO using administrative data collected by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care of Ontario. We compared operative management to non-operative management with respect to the cumulative incidence of recurrence and overall survival; we also performed a cost-utility analysis comparing early operative management to a trial of non-operative management; finally, we evaluated the impact of laparoscopic surgery for aSBO on the incidence of bowel injury and peri-operative morbidity and mortality. A variety of quasi-experimental methods were used to estimate causal effects while accounting for potential confounding by indication. Results We identified 40,800 patients admitted for their first episode of aSBO over 2005-2014. Patients managed operatively had a lower risk of recurrence of aSBO [21.1% vs 13.0%, p | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Belay, Fisseha Yacob | Wane, Njoki N | Conceptualizations and Impacts of Multiculturalism in the Ethiopian Education System | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2016-06 | This research, using critical qualitative research methods, explores the conceptualization and impact of multiculturalism within the Ethiopian education context. The essence of multiculturalism is to develop harmonious coexistence among people from diverse ethnic, social and cultural backgrounds. The current Ethiopian regime has used the ethnic federalism policy to restructure Ethiopia’s geopolitical, social and education policies along ethnic and linguistic lines. The official discourse of Ethiopian ethnic federalism and multicultural policies has emphasized the liberal values of diversity, tolerance, and recognition of minority groups. However, its application has resulted in negative ethnicity and social conflicts among different ethnic groups. Two universities, one in Oromia and another in Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s (SNNP) region, were selected using purposive sampling for this study. Document analysis and in-depth interviews were used to collect data from ten professors, ten students and three curricular experts. The findings of this study revealed that Ethiopian multiculturalism has stemmed from the ethnic federalism political system; however, participants’ conceptualizations ranged from unity to division and difference to allegiance. Data further revealed that the impact of multiculturalism in the Ethiopian education system has involved mother tongue usage, quality of education, lack of leadership and foreign policy, while the impact on inter-ethnic relationships includes the declining social cohesion, the rise of ‘narrow nationalism’ and the implication of ethnic conflicts. This study discusses the effects the politics on language use, the declining quality of education and policy transfer all have within the Ethiopian education system. In addition, the study addresses the proliferation of negative ethnicity and the path to genocide. Finally, it makes recommendations to educators and policy makers to improve the education system as well as provide an environment to cultivate ethnic harmonious coexistence. | Ph.D. | inclusive | 4 |
| Bell, Joshua | Baker, Andrew | Dysfunctional AMPA Receptor Trafficking in Traumatic Brain Injury | Medical Science | 2010-06 | Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a devastating public health problem for patients and their families. The neurodegeneration that follows TBI is complex, but can be broadly subdivided into primary and secondary damage. Though primary damage is irreversible and therefore unsalvageable, extensive literature aimed at understanding the tissue, cellular, inflammatory and subcellular processes following the injury have proven unequivocally that secondary pathophysiological events are delayed and progressive in nature. Understanding these secondary events at the cellular levels is critical in the eventual establishment of targeted therapeutics aimed at limiting progressive injury after an initial trauma. One such secondary event is referred to in the literature as excitotoxicity; a sustained and de-regulated activation of glutamate receptors that leads to rapid cytotoxic edema and calcium overload. Our understanding of excitotoxicity has evolved to include not only a role for elevated extracellular glutamate in mediating neuronal damage, but also post-synaptic receptor modifications that render glutamate profoundly more toxic to injured neurons than healthy tissue. In this thesis, we explored the hypothesis that glutamate excitotoxicity can be perpetuated by trauma-induced post-synaptic modification of the AMPA receptor. Specifically, we used a cortical culture model of TBI as well as the fluid percussion injury device to test the hypothesis that TBI confers a reduction of surface GluR2 protein, an AMPA receptor subunit that limits neuronal calcium permeability. We conjectured that this decrease in the expression of surface GluR2 would increase the expression of calcium-permeable AMPA receptors, thereby rendering neurons vulnerable to secondary excitotoxic injury. We further investigated the subcellular mechanisms responsible for the internalization of surface GluR2, and the phenotypic consequences of GluR2 endocytosis in both models. Our data revealed that both models of TBI resulted in a regulated signaling cascade leading to the phosphorylation and internalization of GluR2. By exogenously interrupting the trafficking of GluR2 protein with an inhibitory peptide, we further observed that GluR2 internalization was mediated by a protein interaction involving protein interacting with C kinase 1 (PICK1) and protein kinase C alpha (PKCα), two PDZ domain-containing proteins that mediate GluR2 trafficking during constitutive synaptic plasticity. We observed that GluR2 endocytosis was NMDA receptor dependent, and resulted in increased neuronal calcium permeability, augmented AMPA receptor-mediated electrophysiological activity and increased susceptibility to delayed cell death. Finally, we demonstrated that the interruption of GluR2 trafficking is cytoprotective, suggesting that sustaining surface GluR2 protein protects neurons against secondary injury. Overall, our findings suggest that experimental TBI promotes the expression of injurious GluR2-lacking AMPA receptors, thereby enhancing cellular vulnerability to secondary excitotoxicity. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Bell, Lindsay | Heller, Monica | Diamonds as Development: Suffering for Opportunity in the Canadian North | Humanities, Social Sciences and Social Justice Education | 2013-06 | Despite the repeated collapse of mining towns and sites in the Great Slave Lake region, most residents embrace new resource projects as possibilities for creating viable futures. Situated at the intersection of socio-cultural and linguistic anthropology, this ethnographic investigation of the Canadian diamond boom of the 2000s illustrates how imagining stable livelihoods despite a record of impermanence and crises depends on integrating and reframing past failures with present aspirations for “the good life”. At the height of the diamond boom in 2007, future imaginaries were largely associated with high wage job creation in the rapidly expanding industrial sector. Based on 18 months of fieldwork among those said to benefit most from new industrial development: the Aboriginal under/unemployed, this dissertation’s ethnographic attention is on job training programs and employment interventions that promised local residents new futures. The fieldwork coincided with the global financial crisis and almost none of the 90 students followed through the research secured work in the industry at the conclusion of their training. Nevertheless, people continue to maintain faith in a future linked to resource development. Capturing people’s everyday re-makings of tomorrow in uncertain times, this dissertation reveals that while employment in global extractive industries is unable to provide economic security to those who seek it, its promises are productive for four reasons. First, they (re)define the natural world as ‘opportunities for work’. Second, the specific techniques of industry and statecraft that surround mining (impact and benefit agreements, and socio-economic monitoring) transform everyday events of difference and inequality into catastrophes which render industrial development sensible even urgent. Third, they orient public sentiment towards a “future anterior,” a form of temporal longing that I argue impedes a deep reading of the historical present and participates in a politics of deferral. Fourth, they rely on and reproduce a chronotopically constrained public debate on natural resource development. | PhD | equality, employment, industr, inequality | 5, 8, 9, 10 |
| Beltan, Sude | Schatz, Edward | Making and Maintaining Metropolises: Entrepreneurial Municipalism in Turkey | Political Science | 2018-06 | This dissertation explores the implications of the public administration and local governance reforms that took place in Turkey in the mid-2000s with a comparative focus on three major metropolitan cities: İstanbul, İzmir, and Diyarbakır. Engaging with the literatures on state rescaling and urban entrepreneurialism, the author analyzes how reforms transformed municipalities into entrepreneurial organizations primarily concerned with territorial competitiveness of their jurisdictions while the central state repositioned itself as a critical actor in urban policy-making. The dissertation research is guided by three critical aspects of urban governance in Turkey: the changing dynamics of intergovernmental relations (national/local and metropolitan/district), the institutional transformation of municipalities (New Public Management restructuring), and emergent urban policies (city branding initiatives, urban transformation projects, and social services). The author argues that variations across three cities indicate how intergovernmental relations imbued with party politics and the local political context are critical in conditioning the scope and content of entrepreneurial action. The author proposes that studies of neoliberal urbanism, which analytically prioritize the political economy perspective, should put cities back into their national context to capture the political and institutional embeddedness of contemporary neoliberal urban governance. | Ph.D. | cities, urban, institution | 11, 16 |
| Benchimol, Eric Ian | Guttmann, Astrid ||To, Teresa | The Ontario Crohn’s and Colitis Cohort: Incidence and Outcomes of Childhood-onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Ontario, Canada | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2010-06 | Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), characterized by chronic gastrointestinal inflammation, represents a significant childhood chronic disease. In this thesis, a case ascertainment definition of paediatric-onset IBD was validated using administrative data and developed the Ontario Crohn’s and Colitis Cohort (OCCC). The epidemiology of paediatric IBD in Ontario was described, demonstrating that Ontario has one of the highest worldwide incidence rates. Statistically significant increases in incidence were noted in 0-4 year olds (5.0%/year, p=0.03) and 5-9 year olds (7.6%/year, p<0.0001), but not in other age groups. Lower income children were more likely to be hospitalized at least once (hazard ratio (HR) 1.17, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.05-1.30) or visit the ED (HR 1.21, 95% CI 1.09-1.35) and had more IBD-related physician visits (odds ratio (OR) 3.73, 95% CI 1.05-13.27). Lower income children with Crohn's disease (CD) (not ulcerative colitis [UC]) were more likely to undergo intra-abdominal surgery within 3 years of diagnosis (OR 1.22, 95% CI 1.01-1.49), especially if diagnosed after 2000 (OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.27-2.53). Finally, changes in health services utilization and surgical rates were described, as were changes in specialist care provision and immunomodulator use in children with IBD between 1994-2007. The changes to care included increased outpatient care provided by paediatric gastroenterologists, and increased immunomodulator use. Children diagnosed with CD, but not UC, in recent years had lower surgical rates. In CD patients, intra-abdominal surgical rates within three years of diagnosis decreased from 18.8% in children diagnosed in 1994-1997 to 13.6% in those diagnosed in 2001-2004 (P = 0.035). When stratified by age at diagnosis, this decrease was significant in children diagnosed ≥10 years old (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.48-0.93). The OCCC will continue to be used to investigate the epidemiology and burden of paediatric IBD and to improve the care received by children with IBD in Ontario. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Bensimon, Cécile M. | Upshur, Ross | Communicable Disease Control in the New Millenium: A Qualitative Inquiry on the Legitimate Use of Restrictive Measures in an Era of Rights Consciousness | Medical Science | 2009-06 | Background: When Canadian public health officials issued thousands of quarantine orders during the SARS outbreak in 2003, it raised difficult questions about the legitimacy and acceptability of restrictive measures to achieve public health goals. While public health interventions have traditionally been justified on utilitarian grounds, this project aims to establish an empirical basis to justify public health action. The objectives are: 1) Descriptive: To describe the views of members of society on the justifiability of using restrictive measures to achieve public health goals; 2) Analytic: To analyze the use of restrictive measures at the intersection of public health policy, human rights norms, and ethics; and 3) Normative: To situate public health ethics within a Habermasian model of communicative ethics that can serve as the basis of justification for the legitimate use of restrictive measures based on the intersubjective recognition of public health and human rights. Methods: Individual interviews were conducted with 62 participants, including 23 health care providers, 16 members of the public, 13 community and/or spiritual leaders from the Greater Toronto Area, as well as six public health officials and four health care regulators at the local, provincial, and federal levels of jurisdiction. Findings: Participant views were analyzed and organized into themes that revolve around the following concepts: 1) common good; 2) types of quarantine; 3) compliance; 4) reciprocity; 5) uncertainty; and 6) communication. Conclusions: Combining empirical research with conceptual scholarship, it is argued that the recognition of and commitment to the common good by participants, which emerged as an overarching theme, provide justificatory power for the use of quarantine during communicable disease outbreaks. But to respect rights, while being committed to the common good, it is argued that we must move beyond the see-sawing between ostensibly competing requirements toward a conception that gives equal weight to public health and human rights; that is, both imperatives – the community and the individual – refer to one another without dissolving into one another. Following a Habermasian account of opening processes of decision-making to a moral-practical discourse, it is argued that public health ethics offers an important site for integrating his model of discourse ethics within public health deliberations to expand the scope of moral argumentation on--and ultimately to ground the justification of--the use of restrictive measures. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Bentley, Paul | Levine, David | Martyr for Mental Health: John R Seeley and the Forest Hill Village Project, 1948-1956 | Humanities, Social Sciences and Social Justice Education | 2013-11 | This is the history of a mental health project conducted in the schools of Forest Hill, Ontario during the 1950s. Its original name was the Forest Hill Village Project but it became famous in history as Crestwood Heights, the book written about the project by John R. Seeley, Alex Sim and Elizabeth Loosley. The Forest Hill Village Project was a significant event in Canadian history not only as part of the first mental health grants ever issued by the federal government; but also as the first major attempt to address the mental health needs of children in school. Hatched at the highest levels of military planning during the Second World War, the Forest Hill Village Project would involve senior government and university administrators as well as psychiatrists, social workers and teachers from across Canada in an experiment in psychoanalytic pedagogy. John R. Seeley was the only individual, however, whose fate was so inextricably linked with the project that it cannot be understood apart from him. It was because of Seeley's genius that a mental health revolution from the top-down was attempted in Canadian history, and it was because of his own psychological issues that it failed. The martyrdom of John R. Seeley did not consist simply in the irony of his own fall into mental illness while leading a mental health project in the schools of Forest Hill, but also in his being effectively banished from Canadian society because of his efforts. The admixture of Seeley's personal issues and his revolutionary commitment to mass psychoanalysis eventually brought him into irreconcilable conflict with the more conservative leadership of Canada's medical and educational establishment. Though Seeley was forced out of teaching in Canada, the history of his mental health revolution may yet open doorways for the future of mental health in Canadian schools. | EDD | health | 3 |
| Bento, Pedro | Restuccia, Diego | Competition, Innovation, and Regulation: Accounting for Productivity Differences | Economics | 2013-11 | The relationships between competition, innovation, and regulation have long been studied in an attempt to understand and evaluate the effect of regulation on the wealth and growth of nations. Recent empirical work has emerged taking advantage of the still ongoing proliferation of ever more disaggregated data to shed more light on these relationships and at the same time uncover new puzzles in need of explanations. This thesis is an attempt to address the discrepancies between some of these newly discovered phenomena and current theory. In Chapter 1 I introduce an insight of Friedrich Hayek - that competition allows a thousand flowers to bloom, and discovers the best among them - into a conventional model of Schumpeterian innovation. I show how the model can account for two seemingly contradictory empirical phenomena, a positive relationship between competition and industry-level productivity growth, and an inverted-U relationship between competition and firm-level innovation. In Chapter 2 I extend the model to investigate the effects of patent protection on competition and innovation, and to understand the interaction between patent policy and product-market regulation. I calibrate the model to show that patent protection in the U.S. is depressing competition, innovation, growth, and welfare. Using patent and citation data, I further provide empirical evidence supporting the implications of the model. In Chapter 3 I investigate the impact of regulatory entry barriers to new firms on aggregate output and total factor productivity. Following recent work by Thomas J. Holmes and John J. Stevens, I extend a standard model of monopolistic competition to account for the existence of both niche markets and mass markets within industries. Calibrating the model using U.S. manufacturing data, I show this extension goes a long way towards explaining the large gap between empirical estimates of the impact of barriers to entry and the quantitative predictions of current models. | PhD | innovation | 9 |
| Beresheim, Amy Catherine | Pfeiffer, Susan K | Bone Microstructure and Changes in Tissue Mineralization throughout Adulthood | Anthropology | 2018-06 | This research aims to explore the global variability in the structural and material properties of mid-thoracic ribs within a large (n=213) sample of known age, sex, and government “race” designation from apartheid South Africa [DOD 1967-1998]. Most individuals in the study sample were non-white, and inferred to be of poor socioeconomic status. Using linearly polarized light microscopy (LPLM) on the full sample, and back-scattered scanning electron microscopy (BSE-SEM) on a subset (n=143), histomorphometric parameters, and the average tissue mineralization of the cortical and trabecular bone compartments were assessed in photomontages of transverse rib cross-sections. The influence of body size on bone mass and histomorphometry was first considered. Tissue-level changes were then interpreted in a biosocial context, exploring variation associated with adverse apartheid living conditions and adult life history. Body size does not appear to correlate with either bone mass or histomorphometry, suggesting that size-standardization may not be necessary in studies of rib bone microstructure. Compared to the women in the research sample, men exhibited delayed peak bone mass attainment, lower osteocyte densities, and lower average tissue mineralization. Women achieved peak bone mass when anticipated. Relative cortical area, osteon area, bone tissue mineralization, and cortical porosity were the best histological indicators of menopause in women. Poorer bone health indices in males infer greater systematic marginalization under apartheid rule. Men in this sample may have been more susceptible to dietary deficiencies and substance abuse issues, leading to compromised bone mass and quality. This research demonstrates that osteoporosis risk is not just a concern of the aged, white female population in South Africa. It provides novel data on an understudied population, and underscores the importance of skeletal research collections for the study of contemporary epidemiological issues. | Ph.D. | socioeconomic, health, women | 1, 3, 2005 |
| Berg, Herman van den | Choo, Chun Wei ||Silverman, Brian S. | Knowledge-based Vertical Integration: The Nature of Knowledge and Economic Firm Boundary Location | Information Studies | 2008-06 | This research extends the knowledge-based view of the firm as it relates to organizational structure. In particular, this research provides evidence that fundamental classifications of knowledge are measurable, in relative terms, as factors of production. It then relates differences in relative quantities of these classifications of knowledge to the presence or absence of inter-firm boundaries. Finally, this study provides evidence that financial performance may be related to the alignment of organizational structure with knowledge-based factors of production. This study contributes to strategic management theory by offering a potential solution to the difficulties of measuring knowledge as a factor of production. The research was motivated by the belief that it is the cost and value of knowledge that determines economic efficiency (Simon, 1999). By surveying professionals in the mutual fund industry for their relative reliance on three classifications of knowledge, this study suggests a set of measures of knowledge-based factors of production. These measures in turn support the testing of hypotheses related to the vertical integration (or de-integration) of adjacent stages of production. Researchers have typically categorized organizational knowledge as either tacit or explicit. This research develops the concept of encapsulated knowledge as a fundamental classification of knowledge. Encapsulated knowledge is neither tacit nor explicit, because it is externalized and implicit. Progress in measuring knowledge is made by distinguishing between knowledge that resides in human minds (tacit), knowledge that is codified as information (codified), and knowledge that is embodied in the design and functionality of physical artefacts (encapsulated). Relative reliance on the fundamentally different knowledge-based factors of production was found to vary between adjacent stages of production, despite the essential overlap of jointly held substantive knowledge. Portfolio managers are generally less (more) reliant on tacit (encapsulated) knowledge than other investment management professionals in the mutual fund complex. In addition, portfolio managers whose firms are de-integrated from the mutual fund management firms were found to be more (less) reliant on tacit (encapsulated) knowledge than their integrated counterparts. Finally, alignment between mutual fund structure and reliance on knowledge-based factors of production was found to affect performance of mutual funds. | PhD | industr | 9 |
| Bergholz, Max | Viola, Lynne | None of us Dared Say Anything: Mass Killing in a Bosnian Community during World War Two and the Postwar Culture of Silence | History | 2012-11 | This dissertation analyzes the dynamics of mass killing in the Kulen Vakuf region of Bosnia during 1941 in order to explain why a culture of silence crystallized after the Second World War about the murder of Muslim civilians by Serb insurgents. The main argument is that the silence about nearly 2,000 Muslim civilians massacred by Serb insurgents was rooted in the transformation of many of the perpetrators into members of the Communist-led Partisan resistance movement. After the war, the Communist authorities remained silent about the massacres to avoid implicating Partisan fighters as war criminals, and so too did the Muslim survivors out of fear and a desire to move on. The dissertation uncovers the emergence of the silence through an analysis of the actions of the local Communist authorities, the Muslim and Serb communities, and the interactions among them between the years 1941-1981. It studies the history of the silence through the categories of those who “were silenced” and those who “were silent,” concluding that the complicity of nearly all social groups was necessary for the maintenance of silence about the massacres, which everyone knew about, but almost no one spoke of publicly. Through a detailed study of one Bosnian region over four decades this dissertation sheds light on the broader subjects of mass violence, remembrance, and national relations and identification in this part of Europe during the twentieth century. Specifically, it shows how the German invasion of Yugoslavia—and not widespread ethnic hatred among neighbors—triggered a small number of local extremists to engage in mass violence, which quickly cascaded into acts of attempted genocide and civil war. It illuminates how perpetrators of mass ethnic violence paradoxically were absorbed by guerrilla forces dedicated to multi-ethnic co-existence. It demonstrates how a Communist regime, which was explicitly committed to promoting the national equality of its multi-national population, ended up practicing a war remembrance policy that was profoundly skewed along national lines, and specifically against Muslims. It shows the concrete ways in which silence, a subject that historians of remembrance generally pay lip-service to but have yet to examine carefully, is created and enforced in the aftermath of mass killing. Finally, it argues that fixed notions of ethnic hatred or inter-ethnic friendship fail to grasp the highly fluid and situational nature of national relations and identification in multi-ethnic communities living in the shadow of mass killing. This dissertation is based on three main sources: previously untapped archival documents, especially from the Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo and the Archive of the Una-Sana Canton in Bihać; memoirs and testimonies written by participants in wartime events, including several unpublished manuscripts never used before by researchers; and numerous interviews conducted with survivors of mass killings and their children. | PhD | peace | 16 |
| Bergman, Jennifer | Lemmens, Trudo | The Systemic Failure to Protect Children with Mental Health Issues: An Analysis of the Failings of the Family Law and Criminal Justice Systems | Law | 2018-11 | A significant majority of children who are engaged with the family law (child welfare) and youth criminal justice systems suffer with mental health issues. Only a fraction of them get treatment. Without adequate supports and services these children may become enmeshed in a “vicious cycle”, with significant short and long-term consequences for children and families, as well as society as a whole. In this Thesis, I explore the role of the law, in theory and in practice, in the failure to provide these children with needed mental health services. Specifically, I investigate how the definition of mental health issues in the family law (child welfare) and criminal justice systems, and the failure in both systems to recognize the impact of the intersection of various factors (e.g. socioeconomic status, race, gender) on individual children (and families), leads to a systemic failure to adequately protect children with mental health issues. | LL.M. | socioeconomic, health, gender | 1, 3, 2005 |
| Berkowitz, Christine Ann | Halpern, Rick | Railroad Crossings: The Transnational World of North America, 1850-1910 | History | 2009-11 | The last quarter of the nineteenth century is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of railroad building. More track was laid in this period in North America than in any other period. The building of railroads was considered synonymous with nation building and economic progress. Railway workers were the single largest occupational group in the period and among the first workers to be employed by large-scale, corporately owned and bureaucratically managed organizations. While there is a rich historiography regarding the institutional and everyday lives of railway workers and the corporations that employed them, the unit of analysis has been primarily bounded by the nation. These national narratives leave out the north-south connections created by railroads that cut across geo-political boundaries and thus dramatically increasing the flows of people, goods and services between nations on the North American continent. Does the story change if viewed from a continental rather than national perspective? Railroad Crossings tells the story of the people and places along the route of the Grand Trunk Railroad of Canada between Montreal, Quebec and Portland, Maine and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (and later of the Southern Pacific) between Benson, Arizona and Guaymas, Sonora. The study first takes a comparative view of the cross-border railroad development followed by a consideration of emerging patterns and practices that suggest a broader continental continuity. The evidence demonstrates that this broader continental continuity flows from the application of a certain “railroad logic” or the impact of the essence of railroad operations that for reasons of safety and efficiency required the broad standardization of operating procedures that in many ways rendered place irrelevant. | PhD | worker, institution | 8, 16 |
| Berlingieri, Adriana | Mirchandani, Kiran | Challenging Workplace Bullying: The Shaping of Organizational Practices Toward Systemic Change | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2015-06 | In the last two decades, much effort has been invested in empirical research to understand workplace bullying. However, the identification, development and use of practices to counter it remain one of the largest research gaps in the field. This study centres on how the current conceptualization of bullying places an exclusive focus on individual actors and acts which directly shapes prevention and intervention organizational practices limiting the potential for long-term, systemic change. I sought out an organization that is attempting to take up the concept of bullying differently and trace how this conceptualization shapes their practices. As a critical organizational ethnography, guided by institutional ethnography and practice-based studies, this study includes fieldwork within a major healthcare organization. I examine practices in depth, in particular policies and education and training programs, using participant conversations and textual analysis. I examine links between how the concept of workplace bullying is constructed on an everyday basis by organizational members and internal organizational practices. Bullying in this organization is conceptualized as an interpersonal issue, as well as an organizational and societal issue and as interrelated with other forms of violence. Changes in interpersonal relations of their members, as well as systemic and organizational changes, are central goals.It is important for anti-violence (including bullying) practices to not focus on individual acts and behaviours alone. Workplace bullying is best recognized and dealt with also as an organizational issue. If the organization's role remains hidden, its systems and practices interrelated with violence will continue unaltered. In particular, organizations need to view anti-violence practices as interrelated to those countering inequities in the workplace. Effective anti-violence practices do not stop with implementation. They are ongoing, collaborative processes of development, evaluation, learning, communication and unwavering commitment. Practice do not stand alone, but are related to, support and shape one another. | Ph.D. | worker | 8 |
| Bernardes, Rogerio Paulo | Sykes, Heather | Big Boys, Physical Education, and the Ethics of Bodily Difference: A Poststructural Analysis | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2019-11 | The purpose of this thesis was to explore: 1) body, health, and movement discourses – particularly those advanced by the physical education and biomedical health communities – that shaped the embodied movement experiences of boys, with a focus on bigger boys; 2) how boys negotiated accusations of fatness, discourses of health, and what I have termed physical education-through-sport; and, 3) how we might move forward ethically in the conceptualization of embodiment and encounters with bodily difference. Making selective use of authors and theories in the process of plugging in (Jackson Mazzei, 2012), I used a theoretical framework informed by poststructuralist theory and a philosophy of the limit (Cornell, 1992; Pronger, 2002). Working with six boys ages 12 to 14 years old, I employed semi-structured interviews, participant observation sessions (developed as part of a physical activity program specific to this study), and focus groups to theorize a shift from fatness to bigness that redeemed oversized bodies as intelligible in gendered constructions of masculinity. For the boys in this study, constructions of health and physical activity were more strongly connected to mental health concerns and maintaining positive social relations than to disease prevention and ill-health. These understandings opened up a space to conceptualize ethical encounters with bodily difference that challenged dominant constructions of the individual, separate, independent, sovereign self. Drawing on a philosophy of the limit (Cornell, 1992), a conceptualization of the connected, self-in-relation was proposed in terms of the ethic of alterity (Cornell, 1992; Pronger, 2002). This is an ethic of compassionate openness that endorses encounters with ‘difference’ without fear of otherness. In this view, this ethic of alterity confronts the territorialisation of difference present in discourses of (systemic) inclusion by conceptualizing an already interrelated and interdependent self as a condition of subjectivity. | Ph.D. | gender, health | 3, 5 |
| Bernstein, Jodi T. | L'Abbe, Mary R | Examination of the sugars contents of Canadian prepackaged foods and the role that nutrition labelling can play in helping Canadians identify foods consistent with World Health Organization Guidelines | Nutritional Sciences | 2018-11 | The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends free sugars intakes be limited to a maximum of 10% of energy intake. This thesis aims to characterize sugars in the Canadian prepackaged food and beverage supply and investigate whether the sugars information available on the food label (% Daily Value (%DV) and nutrient content claims) support the WHO free sugars intake guidelines. Three studies were conducted using the University of Toronto’s Food Label Information Program (FLIP) 2013 database that contains nutrient composition and labelling information for a large representative sample of prepackaged foods and beverages (n=15,342). In the first study, a novel method for calculating the free sugars contents was developed and applied to products in FLIP 2013. Free sugars were present in 65% of foods and beverages and contributed on average, 20% of calories and 64% of products’ total sugars content. In the second study, a free sugars DV of 50g, which aligns with WHO guidelines, was compared with a total sugars DV of 100g. A free sugars DV more consistently identified products with ≥10% of calories from free sugars (82% vs. 55%) and with suboptimal nutritional composition as defined by the Food Standards Australia New Zealand nutrient profiling scoring criterion (70% vs. 45%), than a total sugars DV. In the third study, products with sugar-related nutrient content claims had more favourable nutrient profiles than those without these claims, but 48% had ≥10% of calories from free sugars. Findings suggest the need for nutrition labelling and the food supply to more reliably support identification and consumption of products consistent with WHO free sugars intake guidelines. Together these results represent significant advancements in the field of sugars research and the calculation and addition of free sugars levels to FLIP can inform an array of future studies and policy actions related to free sugars. | Ph.D. | nutrition, production | 2, 12 |
| Bernstein, Seth | Viola, Lynne | Communist Upbringing under Stalin: The Political Socialization and Militarization of Soviet Youth, 1934-1941 | History | 2013-11 | In 1935 the Communist Youth League (Komsomol) embraced a policy called "communist upbringing" that changed the purpose of Soviet official youth culture. Founded in 1918, the Komsomol had been an organization of cultural proletarianization and economic mobilization. After the turmoil of Stalin’s revolution from above, Soviet leaders declared that the country had entered the period of socialism. Under the new conditions of socialism, including the threat of war with the capitalist world, "communist upbringing" transformed the youth league into an organization of mass socialization meant to mold youth in the shape of the regime. The key goals of "communist upbringing" were to broaden the influence of Soviet political culture and to enforce a code of "cultured" behavior among youth. Youth leaders transformed the Komsomol from a league of young male workers into an organization that included more than a quarter of Soviet youth by 1941, incorporating more adolescents, women, and non-workers. Employing recreation, reward and disciplinary practices that blurred into repression, mass socialization in the Komsomol attempted to create a cohort of "Soviet" youth - sober, orderly, physically strong and politically loyal to Stalin’s regime. The transformation of youth culture under Stalin reflected a general shift in Stalinist social policies in the mid-1930s. Historians have argued whether this turn was a conservative retreat from Bolshevik ideals or the use of apolitical modern state practices in the service of socialism. This dissertation shows that while youth leaders were intensely interested in modern state practices, they made these practices into central elements of Soviet socialism. Through the Komsomol, youth became a resource for the state to guide along the uncertain and dangerous road to the future of communism. Reacting to domestic and international crises, Stalinist leaders created a system of state socialization for youth that would last until the fall of the Soviet Union. | PhD | women, gender, institution | 5, 16 |
| Bersaglio, Brock | Kepe, Thembela | Green grabbing and the contested nature of belonging in Laikipia, Kenya: A genealogy | Geography | 2017-06 | Global demand to protect endangered wildlife at any cost has corresponded to increasingly more Large-Scale Land Acquisitions being carried out for conservation purposes. This dissertation focuses on how and why different rural groups have such diverse experiences with, and reactions to, this phenomenon (i.e. green grabbing). Recent studies emphasize the need to depart from stereotypes of rural groups as either passive victims or unified resistors of green grabbing. Such studies show that green grabs have differentiated impacts and are met by variegated political reactions from below â including resistance, acquiescence, and incorporation. While making important contributions to the literature, these insights lead to additional questions. For example, how do the political reactions of certain rural groups align or depart from those of others and why? In responding to such questions, this dissertation makes green grabbing a subject of ethnographic and historical analysis in Laikipia, Kenya. Through a genealogical approach to studying green grabbing, this dissertation brings literature on ethnicity and belonging in Laikipia into dialogue with recent green grabbing literature. The findings suggest that in settler societies, certain aspects of green grabbing may be understood as acts of white belonging. Likewise, green grabbing presents other rural groups with opportunities â however marginal â to re-assert different notions of belonging in the landscape through resistance, acquiescence, or incorporation. Based on these findings, this dissertation argues that green grabbing is central to longstanding contestations over belonging in Laikipia. The phenomenon has been made possible by, but has also re- produced, ethno-spatial divisions rooted in colonial expansion. By tracing the shifting contours of these divisions in time, this dissertation contextualizes how and why different rural groups experience and react to green grabbing. In doing so, it builds a case for ethnographic and historical analyses of green grabs in other places, spaces, and times. | Ph.D. | conserv | 15 |
| Bertram, Laurie K. | Iacovetta, Franca | New Icelandic Ethnoscapes: Material, Visual, and Oral Terrains of Cultural Expression in Icelandic-Canadian history, 1875 - Present | History | 2010-11 | This dissertation uses the Icelandic-Canadian community to discuss alternate media and the production of “ethnoscapes,” or landscapes of ethnic identity, on the prairies from 1875 to the present. Drawing from larger historiographies of food, gender, material culture, oral history, and commemoration, it offers an investigation into power, acculturation, and representation using often-marginalized terrains of Canadian ethnic expression. Each of the project’s five chapters examines the cultural history of the community through a different medium. The first chapter uses clothing, one of the most intimate and immediate ways that migrants experienced transition in North America, to explore the impact of poverty, marginalization, disease, climate, and eventual access to Anglo commercial goods on migrant culture. Chapter two analyses the role of food and drink, specifically coffee, alcohol, and vínarterta (a festive layered torte) in everyday life and the development of migrant identity. The third chapter analyses the growth of conservatism and depictions of women in the Icelandic-Canadian community in the twentieth century, with a focus on the decline of radical Icelandic language publications and the rise of ethnic spectacles. Chapter four analyses the impact of centennial and multicultural heritage campaigns on Icelandic-Canadian life, popular narrative, and domestic space by tracing the emergence of the koffort (immigrant trunk) in intergenerational family commemorative practices. Chapter five continues the discussion of popular memory with an examination of the compelling hjátru (superstitious) narrative tradition in the community. It illustrates that Icelandic migrants imported and adapted this tradition to the North American context in a way that also reflected their understanding of colonial violence as an unresolved, disruptive, and damaging intergenerational inheritance. Providing an alternate view of the community beyond either cultural endurance or assimilation, this dissertation argues that the multiple material, visual, and oral conduits through which members have experienced life in the New World have been crucial to the construction of Icelandic-Canadian identity. It is through these terrains that community members have continually engaged with public expectations and demands for both ethnic performance and suppression. The fluidity of these forms and forums and their facilitation of members’ engagement with, adaptations to, and contestation of images of ethnicity and history have enabled the continual construction of Icelandic identities in North America 135 years after departure. | PhD | poverty, food, gender, women | 1, 2, 2005 |
| Bethell, Jennifer | Rhodes, Anne ||Bondy, Susan | Child and Adolescent Emergency Department Presentations for Self-harm: Population-based Data from Ontario, Canada | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2012-06 | Objective: Describe emergency department (ED) presentations for self-harm by youth (12-17 yearolds), including the mental health follow-up they receive after their first-ever presentation, and analyze the association between this mental health follow-up and repeat presentation(s). Methods: Population-based health services data from Ontario, Canada, covering April 2002 to March 2009, were used to ascertain ED presentations for self-harm by youth (n=16,835). These data were used to create a retrospective cohort (n=3,497) of those making their first-ever presentation, and individually-linked to inpatient admission and ambulatory physician contact data. Mental health follow-up within 30-days of discharge, either from a psychiatrist or from any physician specialty, was assessed. The associations between follow-up and repeat self-harm presentation(s) within the following year were then analyzed. Results: Conservatively, the overall incidence rate for ED presentations for self-harm by Ontario youth was 239.0 per 100,000 person-years. Rates were higher in girls, increased with age and inversely related to neighbourhood income and community size (population). Self-harm made up a small but severe proportion of ED use by youth. Over half (57.2%) making their first-ever self-harm presentation had no mental health contact with a physician within 30 days of discharge (and several demographic, clinical and health service variables were associated with follow-up). However, mental health follow-up was not associated with reduced odds of repetition or fewer repeat presentations. Conclusions: ED presentations for self-harm by youth in Ontario are remarkably consistent with those reported from other Western countries. Self-harm is an important public health issue in Canada and requires a comprehensive prevention strategy. These data suggested follow-up youth received after their first-ever ED presentation for self-harm may be inadequate and strategies to improve follow-up may be needed. Still, more research is needed to establish the effect of follow-up on relevant outcomes. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Bhaneja, Charu | Teichman, Judith | Hustling the State - Women’s Movements as Policy Entrepreneurs: Engaging the State in India | Political Science | 2014-06 | This study examines the opportunities and constraints women activists confront as they pursue strategies to influence public policy in a fluctuating, diverse and complex political arena. To illustrate this, I suggest that engagement with the state can be efficacious in certain instances (violence against women) but that in those cases where women face structural constraints (women’s political representation), where the challenges are powerful, opportunity to have an impact is limited. Examining the extent to which the state has been an arena where women’s groups have been able to demand and achieve change provides significant insights into political environments that shape women’s agency and advocacy within that region. My doctoral thesis takes a multi-level approach in order to understand the impact of women’s movements on the state and its institutions. I maintain that women’s movement activity elicits state responsiveness and I analyze three factors to support my claim. First, I consider what government is in power and how open it is to engagement. Secondly, I consider how cohesive the women’s movement is on a particular issue and thirdly, I maintain that women’s national machinery can be an effective channel for implementing women’s interests. Building on theoretical ideas from New Social Movement theory and theories on women and the state, my research forms a bridge by combining a macro-meso-micro analysis that captures both the women’s associational field itself and the complex interactions between civil and political society. Drawing on data from my qualitative research I demonstrate that national governments do not act unless otherwise pushed from women’s movements proving that pro-women legislation has not been possible without the organization and mobilization of women’s groups. The implications of the findings presented in this thesis suggest that women are the strength of institutions and are imperative to the functioning of women’s national machinery hustling the state as policy brokers. | PhD | institution, rights, women | 5, 16 |
| Bhatia, Amar | Macklin, Audrey | We All Belong: Indigenous Laws for Making and Maintaining Relations Against the Sovereignty of the State | Law | 2018-03 | This dissertation proposes re-asserting Indigenous legal authority over immigration in the face of state sovereignty and ongoing colonialism. Chapter One examines the wider complex of Indigenous laws and legal traditions and their relationship to matters of â peoplingâ and making and maintaining relations with the land and those living on it. Chapter Two shows how the state came to displace the wealth of Indigenous legal relations described in Chapter One. I mainly focus here on the use of the historical treaties and the Indian Act to consolidate Canadian sovereignty at the direct expense of Indigenous laws and self- determination. Conventional notions of state sovereignty inevitably interrupt the revitalization of Indigenous modes of making and maintaining relations through treaties and adoption. Chapter Three brings the initial discussion about Indigenous laws and treaties together with my examination of Canadian sovereignty and its effect on Indigenous jurisdiction over peopling. I review the case of a Treaty One First Nationâ s customary adoption of a precarious status migrant and the related attempt to prevent her removal from Canada on this basis. While this attempt was unsuccessful, I argue that an alternative approach to treaties informed by Indigenous laws would have recognized the staying power of Indigenous adoption. Notwithstanding current Canadian immigration law, this staying power would further the goals of Indigenous self-determination, decolonization, and Canadian reconciliation. The Conclusion reviews the preceding arguments and contends that state sovereignty remains a significant, but not insurmountable, barrier to Indigenous self-determination and Canadian reconciliation. Grudging legal developments and heightened societal expectations require genuine, substantive reconciliation efforts. It seems only a matter of time before Indigenous rights to extend membership and status to foreign nationals are recognized again. This dissertation makes the original contribution that the best way of doing so would be through the renewal of treaty relations informed by resurgent Indigenous laws and legal traditions. | S.J.D. | rights | 16 |
| Bhatia, Tajinder Pal Singh | Kant, Shashi | Economic Analysis of World's Carbon Markets | Forestry | 2012-03 | Forestry activities play a crucial role in climate change mitigation. To make carbon credits generated from such activities a tradable commodity, it is important to analyze the price dynamics of carbon markets. This dissertation contains three essays that examine various issues confronting world’s carbon markets. The first essay investigates cointegration of carbon markets using Johansen maximum likelihood procedure. All carbon markets of the world are not integrated. North American carbon markets show integration and so do the CDM markets. For future, the possibilities of arbitrage across world’s markets are expected to be limited, and carbon trading in these markets will be globally inefficient. There is a strong need of a global agreement that allows carbon trade to prevent climate change at the least cost options. The second essay evaluates various econometric models for predicting price volatility in the carbon markets. Voluntary carbon market of Chicago is relatively more volatile; and like other financial markets, its volatility is forecasted best by a complex non-linear GARCH model. The compliance market of Europe, on the other hand, is less volatile and its volatility is forecasted best by simple econometric models like Historical Averages and GARCH and hence is different from other markets. Findings could be useful for investment decision making, and for making choice between various policy instruments. The last essay focuses on agent based models that incorporate interactions of heterogeneous entities. Artificial carbon markets obtained from such models have statistical properties - lack of autocorrelations, volatility clustering, heavy tails, conditional heavy tails, and non-Gaussianity; which are similar to the actual carbon markets. These models possess considerably higher forecasting capabilities than the traditional econometric models. Forecast accuracy is further improved considerably through experimentation, when agent characteristics like wealth distribution, proportion of allowances and number of agents are set close to the real market situations. | PhD | wealth distribution, trade, climate, forest | 1, 10, 13, 15 |
| Bhattarai, Anil | Rankin, Katharine N||Hunter, Mark | Seeing Like a Farmer: Socioecological Complexity of Constructing and Maintaining Ecologically Integrated Smallholder Family Farms | Geography | 2019-11 | This dissertation investigates the political-ecological conditions that led to the emergence and spread of ecological farming practices in Nepal’s Chitwan Valley. It takes a conjunctural approach to examine the spread of different ecological practices in different periods and the roles played by households, government institutions and others in this process of change. The dissertation draws upon data generated through an interdisciplinary qualitative research which utilized mixed-methods including a year-long ethnographic field research in Nepal, primary and secondary literature review, personal experiences, observation, and formal and informal interviews. This dissertation shows that the adoption of ecological farming practices resulted from different conjunctural changes within the farming households and beyond. The major factors within the households that pushed for the adoption of ecological practices were: the reduced availability of household labour as children spent increasing amount of time in schools and adults engaged in off-farm activities, the decline of formal and informal access to common pool resources such as grazing lands and forests, and the perceived and/or real biophysical shifts such as intractable pest damage of crops, beneficial effects of multi-cropping, and degradation of soil by the use of chemical fertilizers. These changes were also possible because of changes beyond the households: specific policies and programs adopted by national government agencies, international development agencies, and, after 1990s, non-governmental organizations. These policies included direct support such as through cash subsidies (for biogas) and free distribution of saplings, educational and training programs on ecological management of farms, and formal and informal exchanges of ideas and experiences of ecological practices among farmers. This dissertation also shows that Increased commodification of other aspects of households, such as the education of children, construction of modern homes, and health care, has created challenges for ecological farming. Differentiated capacity for diversification of resource generation such as through migration and off-farm income shapes the possibility for the maintenance of the ecological farms. This dissertationI has developed the rubric of ‘seeing like a farmer’ as a conceptual tool to critically assess and examine this phenomenon. This framework integrates 'society' and 'nature,' and expands the focus beyond 'agricultural sector'. | Ph.D. | labour, agriculture | 2, 8 |
| Bhatthal, Parminder | Olson, Paul | Factors Motivating Sikh Canadian Youth to Become Involved in the Khalistan Movement | Social Justice Education | 2015-11 | The purpose of the study was to catalogue and analyse factors that motivate Canadian Sikh youth in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to become involved with the Khalistan movement. Two research questions were posed: (1) How does the Khalistan movement serve to order and manage intra-Sikh relationships, primarily those involving young people, in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario? (2) How does the Khalistan movement manage the Sikh identity vis-à-vis the non-Sikh realities of India and Canada? Using the theoretical frames of symbolic interactionism, functionalist homeostasis, and, to a lesser extent, postcolonial theory, applied through a case study method, three main conclusions were reached. The first finding of the study was that family influences solidified Khalistan-involved youth’s attitude of differentiation from other Canadians. Personal identity interpretations led Khalistan-involved Sikh youth to develop and reinforce a sense of differentiation from other Canadians. Khalistan thus provided an important pivot of differentiation for these participants. The second finding of the study was that participation in Khalistani movements was discovered to be a means for men to build a masculine Sikh identity in interaction with each other, women to build a general social identity based on interactions with each other, and men and women to interact with each other on the basis of collective socio-religious identity exploration and affirmation. Participation in Khalistani movements also came to be understood as a means of expression and differentiation for Sikhs that identified as Sikh only, or Sikh and Canadian, or Canadian only. The study presented a general sociological model for understanding the politicised actions of immigrant youth in Canada. | Ph.D. | rights | 16 |
| Bhimani, Salima | Ruben, Gaztambide-Fernandez Dr. | (ORIGINAL - see JIRA ticket https://support.library.utoronto.ca/browse/TSPCE-21695) Mapping the Assembly of Muslim Exceptionality and Exceptional Muslims in Colonial Modernity. Ismaili Muslim Encounters through Discourses, Bodies and Space in the Canadian Colonial Nation | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2013-11 | What is produced through the encounters with specific “modern Muslims” in the Canadian colonial nation state? In the last decade in Canada there have been efforts to engage in a demarcation between Muslims and other racialized groups in order to define some bodies as part of the nation whilst others outside of the national imaginary. This is particularly important in the nation-building project of Canada in retaining a tolerant, liberal and multiculturally celebrated society. This critical feminist ethnography makes visible the encounters and present economies of sociopolitical currents in which the Ismailis, as a Muslim community and gendered ethnicized bodies, move and animate in Canada as a settler colonial race formation as well as in a broader geography of Muslim social and cultural politics. It is in the constitutions and movements of their collective subjectivities as a religious community and in their ethnicized gender, race, and class difference that they locate and engage in interlocking systems of power rooted in nation, empire, colonialism, modernity, and religion. This thesis aims to show that in order to make sense of Ismaili encounters it is necessary to map multiple pasts and multiple presents, which they are part of and that shape them. Different from most studies on the Ismailis in Canada, I also place Ismailis’ entrance and settlement in Canada within a broader dynamic of colonial power and management of racialized peoples and within current shaping of Muslims as racial constructs. This thesis argues that Ismailis are becoming Muslims of “exceptionality.” First, through their high level public encounter with the colonial settler Canadian nation state; second through their intersecting encounters with other Muslims and non-Muslims in Canada; and third in their encounters with each other as Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian Ismailis. These three encounters intervene the discourse of pluralism of which the Ismailis are becoming advocates and Canada its global exemplar. It is through seeing what is produced between these “bodies” in specific moments of their meeting in Canada that, bodily, spatial and discursive practices of social relationship making emerge. These show the paradoxical outcomes of embodying modern coloniality and Muslim exceptionality. | PhD | gender | 5 |
| Biazar, Bahar | Mojab, Shahrzad | ESL Education for Social Transformation | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2015-11 | If one considers the colonial history of TESL, its ties to imperialism, and capitalism’s need for a cheap labour force which instigates movement of both people and corporations, one will see that TESL is a very social and political activity. Furthermore, since our current social organization and economic model are guided by capitalist social relations, it is crucial to place teaching ESL within these relations in order to shed light on its role in capitalism’s reproduction. In this study, I focus on the learner as a social being and investigate the potential of English language learning as a social and political act for the purpose of social change. My main research question is: What is English language learning from the perspective of the learner who is motivated by pursuing social transformation? What would an ESL class aimed at social change look like from the perspective of the learners and teachers of this study and a dialectical theoretical framework? To what degree are ESL teachers and institutions aware or accommodating to these learners’ needs? To pursue these questions, I have conducted a qualitative research study to explore the barriers and successes that ESL teachers attempting to do critical work have had. I have also interviewed ESL learners who are motivated by their desire to be politically and socially active in order to gain insight about their English language learning and their ESL classes. My theoretical conceptualization has allowed me to see how our actions as ESL teachers and theorists at times reproduce capitalist social relations and at other times challenges and disrupts them. It is my hope that this study will generate theory in the field of language education that helps other language learners and educators to politicize, decolonize, and radicalize the field of ESL. | Ph.D. | institution, labour | 8, 16 |
| Biggar, Jeff | Siemiatycki, Matthew | Between Public Goals and Private Projects: Negotiating Community Benefits for Density from Toronto's Urban Redevelopment | Geography | 2017-11 | This dissertation investigates the role of Toronto’s discretionary planning system in extracting public value from density gains in private land development. The three articles that comprise the dissertation focus on three interrelated phenomena: the equity effects of densification and spatial distribution of public benefits; the practice of discretion in planning based on a system of development control and its effects on the delivery of public benefit outcomes; and, different approaches to planning negotiations and the consequences this brings to the governance of public benefits. In policy terms, these interrelated phenomena centre around a discrete area of Toronto’s land use planning framework known as “Section 37” – a section of Ontario’s Planning Act granting exemptions from planning rules for developers in exchange for them providing “community benefits:” parks and open space, public art, affordable housing. Drawing on GIS analysis and 55 semi-structured interviews, the thesis documents the incentive-based mechanism known as density bonusing in Toronto’s land use regime. The analysis highlights the ways in which this planning policy and practice articulates the connections between municipalities and the private development industry. The dissertation argues that density bonusing in planning is a vehicle for examining broader dynamics of urban phenomena, including the institutional and spatial relationship between private development and public good, notions of ‘good planning’, and the role of non-governmental actors in shaping planning processes and outcomes at the neighbourhood scale. More broadly, the dissertation articulates a common observation that can be gleaned from the research findings: the rise of planning tools like density bonusing point to the centrality of zoning and bargaining as a dominant model of planning occurring in cities. | Ph.D. | industr, cities, urban, land use | 9, 11, 15 |
| Biggs, Jeffrey | Smith, Tat | Marketing Institutions of Afforestation Generated Carbon Offsets in Canada: Political Sustainability, Ideology and the New Institutional Economics | Forestry | 2009-11 | Anthropogenically forced climate change has emerged as one of the most important, and polarizing, issues of our time. Afforestation generated carbon offset projects hold a position in Canada as potentially influential, yet frustratingly under-utilized, options to mitigate climate change. This dissertation responds to the question, “what are the economic implications of afforestation generated carbon offset institutions in Canada – and how appropriate are the tools of the New Institutional Economics (NIE) in their identification?” I establish the context for discussion by arguing that the NIE, as practiced, seems incapable of providing rigorous analysis while simultaneously responding to questions of power and distribution. The case of afforestation generated carbon offset marketing is presented as an appropriate context for exploring this point. A literature review is then used to establish general patterns regarding aggregating institutions for offset production and marketing, and aggregating institutions are presented as a response to the effects of transaction costs on the Canadian offset market. I then develop supply and demand curves to describe the equilibrium state of the Canadian offset market, into which the transaction costs borne by three aggregators are integrated. Their performance in fulfilling various policy objectives is evaluated. The results indicate that the primary variation between scenarios is the distribution of benefits. This focus on the distribution of benefits continues through demonstrating how subtle variations in modeling coefficients affect the regional distribution of afforestation projects within Canada, identifying the power associated with policy maker ideology. The role of policy maker ideology is then explicitly examined through a survey of government analysts and technicians and the application of discriminant analysis. The primary axes of afforestation ideology are identified, and demonstrated to be independent of concerns of transaction costs and aggregation. These results are integrated to argue that distributional concerns, particularly when ideologies are active in informing policy maker preferences, are critical to achieving sustainable policy outcomes, and that the NIE can respond to such concerns, but only if reform takes place to legitimate these techniques as part of the standard economic discourse. | PhD | institution, climate | 13, 16 |
| Bilton, David Harrison | Coupland, Gary | Northern, Central, Diversified, Specialized: The Archaeology of Fishing Adaptations in the Gulf of Georgia (Salish Sea), British Columbia | Anthropology | 2014-06 | The Coast Salish subsistence economy has been characterized by local fishing adaptations to regional ecological variability (Mitchell 1971a.) This dissertation explores the temporal depth of these adaptations in the traditional territory of the Coast Salish, the Gulf of Georgia. Many researchers have used this, Donald Mitchell’s (1971a), model to develop theories of regional cultural development. Many of these interpretations present social complexity or social inequality – a hallmark of Northwest Coast social complexity – as having developed more or less in lock-step with the specialized fishing adaptation described among the Central Coast Salish, around the Fraser River. The temporal depth of this adaptation and the “Diversified” fishing adaptations described among the Northern and Southern Coast Salish, as well as their developmental relationship, are not well understood. In exploring this problem, this study evaluates whether or not the ecological ethnographic model is representative of the archaeology of these cultural subareas. A gap in the regional dataset which corresponds with a large portion of Mitchell’s (1971a) “Northern Diversified” fishing subarea has largely presented a previous study of this type. Recently excavated sites in traditional shíshálh territory provide artifact and archaeofaunal data that fill in this gap. These data are analyzed along with existing data from the Northern subarea and from the Central Gulf of Georgia (River and Straits Fishing subareas). The results of this study significantly broaden our understanding of prehistoric Coast Salish socioeconomic diversity, and test the assumed salmon specialization on the Fraser River and its primacy the development of regional ethnographic characteristics, especially pronounced social inequality. The results also shed light on the prehistoric importance of herring, a decreasingly overlooked resource in Northwest Coast archaeological studies, and advocate for the use of fine mesh recovery for quantifying the relative importance of fish species. | PhD | fish, socioeconomic, quality | 1, 5, 14 |
| Binnington, Matthew John | Wania, Frank | Modeling and Measuring Environmental Contaminant Exposure Among Canadian Arctic Indigenous Humans and Wildlife | Physical and Environmental Sciences | 2016-11 | Arctic wildlife and indigenous human exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) was mechanistically simulated using a combined global fate and transport model (GloboPOP) and food chain bioaccumulation model (ACC-Human Arctic) approach. Initial model results demonstrated that POP concentration-age relationships in long-lived Arctic marine mammal (MM) populations (ringed seals, beluga whales, bowhead whales) are not equivalent to those in individuals when assuming realistic, time-variant chemical emissions. Birth year relative to peak emissions year was the most critical parameter differentiating population versus individual concentration-age associations, while lifespan was shown to possess a negligible impact when these trends were controlled for the birth year effect. Additionally, birth year influence was essentially mitigated in reproductive female Arctic MMs, due to the appreciable POP elimination potential of lactation. Reproductive female wildlife retained no â memoryâ of past POP exposure, and therefore in certain instances population versus individual concentration-age trends were similar. Applying this model approach to reproduce measured POP exposures among indigenous Arctic humans revealed that reported rates of traditional food (TF) consumption, particularly of lipid-rich MM items, were critical determinants of modeled POP concentrations, while their association with measured levels was generally much weaker. This discrepancy in the contribution of reported TF consumption to modeled versus measured POP concentrations caused our model to appreciably overestimate exposures among certain Arctic indigenous biomonitoring populations, to a degree that suggested TF intake rates were highly uncertain. Given this, no reasonable conclusions were possible regarding the chief theorized determinants to temporal POP exposure trends in these groups, namely declining environmental concentrations and reduced population-wide TF consumption. The effect of temporary changes to TF intake by indigenous Arctic women of childbearing age (WCBA), as well as fish intake by temperate WCBA was also investigated. Reductions in consumption of these critical dietary POP exposure sources, including even complete elimination for multiple years prior to pregnancy, was ineffective in reducing long-lived POP exposure to WCBA and their offspring, as WCBA still retained significant body burdens from earlier exposure. However, greater consumption of these same items was shown to rapidly increase POP levels beyond regulatory thresholds. Finally, field and experimental analysis of beluga blubber TFs illustrated that food preparation techniques can exert a significant influence on the levels of certain nutrients and environmental contaminants in these food items. Ageing beluga blubber was the most impactful process examined, due to its distinctive phase separation between solid fat and liquid oil after sufficient fermentation time. Aged liquid oil contained elevated levels of beneficial polyunsaturated fatty acids, and phase separation also selectively depleted certain hydrophilic contaminants from the liquid oil, such as mercury and several ionogenic perfluorinated pollutants. Though ageing uqsuq did not in turn raise concentrations of many hydrophobic contaminants, we did observe elevated concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which ultimately suggested that TF preparation methods may not only modulate chemical content present prior to food processing, but in fact introduce contaminants. Ultimately, our findings aligned with previous investigations of food preparation influence on nutrient and contaminant levels by demonstrating widely variable effects from processing, depending on the compounds, foods, and techniques examined. We also suggest that uqsuq oil may be the most appropriate beluga blubber TF product for indigenous Arctic Canadians wishing to maximize nutrient intake from these food items while minimizing environmental contaminant exposure. | Ph.D. | pollut, environment, marine | 13, 14 |
| Bird, Andrew | Smart, Michael | Taxation and Financial Decision Making | Economics | 2013-11 | Understanding the effects of taxes on the financial decision making process sheds light on the process itself and has important ramifications for policymakers. In this thesis, I study these effects in three different contexts: international acquisitions, executive compensation, and dividend payout. In Chapter 1, I investigate the possibility that tax rather than productivity differences are driving international acquisition decisions. A theoretical model of this process yields two testable implications of tax-induced sorting: that, relative to high-tax domestic bidders, low-tax foreign bidders will specialize in both high profitability target firms and those with low levels of tax deductions. I find support for both of these effects in the U.S. acquisition market using cross-sectional variation in target profitability and industry-level variation in deductions from the tax reform of bonus depreciation. Counterfactual simulations show that this reform induced a large drop in foreign acquisitions, leading to a significant loss of aggregate wealth. In Chapter 2, I study a recent increase in the tax rate on stock options for a subset of firms to learn about the effects of taxation on executive compensation. Using novel executive compensation data, I find that this tax increase resulted in an immediate reduction in both option grants and the share of options in total compensation. There appears to have been limited, if any, substitution towards other components of compensation. Hence, the burden of the tax increase must have been substantially borne by the affected executives. In Chapter 3, I use a 2006 tax cut in Canada to study the effects of dividend taxes on corporate payout. Analysis of discrete dividend events suggest little effect from the reform, in stark contrast with recent evidence from the United States. Difference-in-differences estimates using control groups comprised of firms which were exogenously unlikely to be affected by the reform suggest a small positive effect on net dividend initiations. Finally, fixed effect models of regular dividends reveal a small increase around the reform. However, the type of firms responding casts serious doubt on taxes as the cause. Overall, these results are consistent with the small and open nature of the Canadian economy. | PhD | industr, taxation | 9, 10 |
| Bird, Anne Elizabeth | Livingstone, David W | THE PECULIAR FAMILY BUSINESS OF FAMILY CHILD CARE: POLICY AND REGULATION AFFECTING EMOTIONAL LABOUR IN CAREGIVING | Social Justice Education | 2017-11 | In Ontario, Canadaâ s licensed family child care system, there is a dissonance between expectations embedded in state-licensed family child care regulation and policy, and the lived experience of regulated family child care providers. Gender, social class and more recently, race/ethnicity intersect to exacerbate complicated working conditions for the care providers leading to poor recognition and financial compensation from both parents and the state. I have combined an analysis of the historical development of the care model with my own qualitative investigation of the everyday experience of 11 regulated care providers in Toronto, their material circumstances and the emotional labour they invest in caring for young children. Detailing the historical development of the system shows that the core elements of the contemporary care model can be traced through its child welfare lineage dating from 19th century child saving, and from foster care to family child care, which remains largely unchanged since the inception of regulation in 1978. The elements I have examined are the role of the mandatory home visitor in relation to the care provider and their occupational segregation; the bureaucratic expectations of the state as implemented in a private domain; and the social construction of the care provider as someone who requires surveillance to provide quality care for children, particularly because of her vulnerable location as a low-income, self-employed worker. I have identified these elements for discussion to support a case for change in the contemporary care model. Poor recognition and compensation have been compounded by the deeply entrenched funding model dependent on child care fee subsidies to parents. This circular challenge of an outdated funding model supporting outdated gendered assumptions about a care model is at the heart of the puzzle to solve for jurisdictions that have foisted self-employment on regulated care providers working in their own homes. I conclude with policy and research recommendations for licensed family child care agencies and the Ontario government. | Ph.D. | worker, labour, employment | 8 |
| Bishop, Adam Michael | Gervers, Michael ||Armstrong, Lawrin ||Meyerson, Mark ||Northrup, Linda | Criminal Law and the Development of the Assizes of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century | Medieval Studies | 2011-06 | The legal treatises of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were written in the thirteenth century, when most of the kingdom had been re-conquered by the Muslims. There are no treatises from the twelfth century, when the kingdom was at its height. The thirteenth-century jurists claimed that the kingdom had always had written laws, but they may have been making this up for political purposes. The treatises also discuss issues important to the noble class of which the jurists were a part: property rights and the feudal services owed to the king, as well as the proper way to plead their cases in court. But what do they say about criminal law, and laws for the lower classes? How were crimes tried and punished in the twelfth century, and did this differ from the laws recorded in the thirteenth century? Chapter one deals with the different treatises, and their claim that there was a set of laws called “Letres dou Sepulcre” in the twelfth century. The most important of the treatises for criminal law, the assizes of the burgess court, is examined in detail. Chapter two looks at the small number of laws that survive from the twelfth century, in charters, the canons of the Council of Nablus, and the chronicle of William of Tyre. Chapter three is a study of other descriptions of crusader law in the twelfth century, including those by Christian and Muslim pilgrims, and especially the observations of Usama ibn Munqidh. These accounts are tied together by the common theme of theft and the ways that thieves could be punished. Chapter four deals with cases mentioned by thirteenth-century sources, including theft, assault, and prostitution, but especially cases that led to trials by battle. The usefulness of such trials for dating some of the laws is also examined. The conclusion demonstrates that certain parts of the assizes relating to criminal law must have already existed in the twelfth century, and offers some tentative ideas about the specific origin of the laws. Avenues for future research are also introduced. | PhD | rights | 16 |
| Bissonnette, Jean-Francois | Silvey, Rachel | Envisioning Agribusiness: Land, Labour and Value in a time of Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia | Geography | 2012-11 | The thesis examines the social and economic implications of large-scale agribusiness expansion in Indonesia by analyzing how this economic system, as it is envisioned and materialised, reshapes livelihood possibilities. Based on original interviews with oil palm plantation workers, plantation company officials, smallholders, and on secondary research, this thesis scrutinises the forms of knowledge and practices that constitute large-scale oil palm agribusiness. While oil palm agribusiness produces economic opportunities for groups of individuals from certain social categories, it constrains the prospects of others in systematic ways. Oil palm agribusiness, as a project and as a set of practices, is deployed by a broad range of economic actors at different scales in an attempt to govern access to resources. However, the power of oil palm companies and investors over land, labour, and value is contested and negotiated by workers and smallholders who engage creatively with this economy. The thesis shows that oil palm agribusiness forms a field of power that produces specific subjectivities which transform the meanings and constraints related to this mode of production. The first part of the thesis (chapters 2 and 3) identifies the objectives pursued by those who plan and envision oil palm agribusiness. I emphasise that oil palm agribusiness serves a number of often competing and shifting aims that range from capital accumulation to welfare provision. The second part of the thesis (chapters 4 and 5) demonstrates how the modes of visioning examined in the first part of the thesis produce a broad set of material conditions for populations. I analyse the ways in which these conditions are constantly reshaped by everyday power relations and articulated around the value of labour and land. Based on ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted in West Kalimantan, Lombok, and Nias, these chapters shed light on the lived geographies of labour and the livelihood strategies used by individuals and social groups in the space of oil palm agribusiness. | PhD | labour, worker, production | 8, 12 |
| Biswabandan, Bapujee | Cummins, Jim | Multilingual Education in Classrooms with Multiple Mother Tongues: A Case Study of Pedagogical Possibilities | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2020-06 | This dissertation describes a collaborative action research project undertaken with Grades 1 and 2 children and parents from two Adivasi communities in a multiple-language classroom in a remote area of Odisha, India. The children came from Santali, Ho, and Odia home language backgrounds but were taught in Odia, the dominant state language. Classroom interactions were observed over a 7-month period in order to understand how students and teachers negotiated the teaching of academic content and initial reading skills. The study built on the extensive research that has emerged in recent years supporting mother-tongue based multilingual education (MTBMLE) in countries as diverse as Ethiopia, India, and the Philippines. These studies have provided evidence for cross-linguistic interdependence and transfer of conceptual and academic skills across languages. However, these initiatives were implemented in contexts of linguistic homogeneity involving children from a single mother tongue, whereas the majority of the classrooms in Odisha have children from multiple linguistic backgrounds. In addition to classroom observations, data were gathered by means of interviews with eight parents, two teachers, and five students. These interviews took place both before and after the creation by parents of a multilingual children’s book in Ho, Santali, and Odia. The interviews with parents and teachers prior to the creation of the book focused on participants’ own educational experiences, their linguistic identities, and their views on medium of instruction in education. The interviews after the community book creation project focused on these issues and how participants’ perspectives were affected by the inclusion of the two Adivasi languages in the book and in classroom instruction. The student interviews were conducted after the book was used within the classroom and focused on the impact of this initiative on their attitudes towards their home languages and the dominant school language. The findings of the study suggest a positive impact of a community created multilingual storybook on the parents, the students and the community. The project demonstrated that the multilingual repertoires of parents can be used as a powerful resource for implementing multilingual education in linguistically diverse Adivasi contexts. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Biswas, Aviroop | Alter, David | Examining the relationship between exercise and sedentary behaviour among cardiac rehabilitation patients to inform intervention strategies | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2017-06 | Prolonged time in sedentary behaviours is associated with cardio-metabolic disease risk and mortality in adult populations. Yet, the association between sedentary behaviour and exercise participation on health outcomes is unclear. Six inter-related studies were conducted in the pursuit of the following objectives: to understand the risks and determinants of sedentary behaviour among patients participating in exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR), and inform the development of sedentary behaviour interventions among these individuals. Prolonged sedentary time was found to be associated with cardio-metabolic disorders and mortality independent of physical activity, with greater mortality risks for those with low physical activity levels compared to those with greater levels. Among CR patients, exercise participation did not influence their sedentary time and were found to be highly sedentary (>8 hours per day) at the initiation of, and throughout CR, irrespective of whether physical activity guidelines were met. Patients and staff placed a lower priority in reducing sedentary behaviour than improving physical activity and other health behaviours. Intrapersonal factors (biological, psychological), and environmental factors (behaviour settings, the information environment, social-cultural factors, natural environment) were perceived to be facilitators of sedentary behaviour, and barriers to reducing sedentary behaviour. It was also determined that the exercise focus of CR might be beneficial to individuals who are unable to reallocate sedentary time to exercise and light physical activity. Alternatively, a focus on light-intensity physical activity alone may be suitable for those patients who are unable to participate in exercise. Lastly, it was found that CR programs do not benefit all patients equally, and an intervention strategy must be individually targeted. Taken together, these findings contribute towards a better understanding of whether prolonged sedentary time is a distinct health risk factor, and inform the development and pilot testing of future sedentary behaviour interventions for CR patients. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Black, Tara Loise | Regehr, Cheryl | Children's Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV): Challenging Assumptions about Child Protection Practices | Social Work | 2009-11 | Objective: While child welfare policy and legislation in Canada and other regions has increasingly defined children who are exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) as maltreated, little is known about the response of the child welfare system to children exposed to IPV. This dissertation seeks to determine the response of child protection services to reports about IPV; the outcomes of child protection investigations referred for children exposed to IPV; and what factors predict decisions made by child protection workers (e.g., court involvement, child welfare placement, closing the case, substantiation, and making a referral to other supportive services) for investigations involving children exposed to IPV. Methods: This study is based on a secondary analysis of data collected in the 2003 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-2003). Bivariate analyses and multiple multinomial regression were conducted to study the substantiation of maltreatment, and logistic regression was conducted to predict child protection workers’ decisions to keep the case open, make a child welfare placement, take the family to court, and make a referral for investigations involving children’s exposure to IPV. Results: Seventy-eight percent of the investigations involving only IPV were substantiated. The multinomial regression could not accurately classify the suspected and unfounded cases. Substantiated investigations involving co-occurring IPV were three times more likely to stay open for ongoing child protection services compared to IPV only cases (adjusted odds ratio = 2.93, p < .001). Child protection service outcomes for substantiated investigations involving co-occurring IPV were ten times more likely (adjusted odds ratio = 10.61, p < .001) to involve a child welfare placement compared to IPV only cases. The factors driving child protection worker decisions were primarily the co-occurrence of maltreatment, younger children, and emotional harm. Conclusions: Due to the expansion in what constitutes a child in need of protection, there has been an overwhelming increase in the number of referrals about children being exposed to IPV in Canada. Future analyses should explore whether policies that direct IPV cases to child welfare services is both an effective way of protecting children and a reasonable use of limited child welfare resources. | PhD | well being | 3 |
| Blackport, Russell | Kushner, Paul J | The Atmospheric Response to Arctic Sea Ice Loss in the Coupled Climate System | Physics | 2017-03 | Arctic sea ice loss is expected to have a large impact on the atmosphere, both in the Arctic and potentially outside the Arctic, through changing the atmospheric circulation. In this thesis, the impact of sea ice loss in the climate system is studied using multi-century coupled Earth system model simulations that include dynamical coupling between oceans, atmosphere, and sea ice. In these simulations, sea ice is artificially melted by reducing its albedo. This framework allows for adequate sampling of the isolated impacts of sea ice loss when potentially important ocean feedbacks are included. It is shown that in response to sea ice loss, the atmospheric circulation response is weak compared with internal variability. There is a large reduction in temperature variability on all timescales over the Arctic Ocean. Smaller magnitude reductions in variability are also seen in mid-latitude temperature, sea level pressure and mid-tropospheric geopotential height. The impacts of sea ice loss are isolated from the impacts of warming at low-latitudes in the sea ice albedo forced simulations and simulations forced by projected greenhouse-dominated radiative forcing using a pattern scaling method. It is found that many of the wintertime atmospheric circulation responses that occur in response to sea ice loss are opposed and at least partially cancelled out by the impacts of low-latitude warming. However, both sea ice loss and low-latitude surface warming act in concert to reduce subseasonal temperature variability throughout the mid and high latitudes. Finally, the cause of the previously documented amplified response to sea ice loss in the coupled climate system is investigated. Atmospheric general circulation modelling (AGCM) experiments are performed that show that ocean warming in the mid-to-high latitudes induced by sea ice loss amplifies the atmospheric circulation response. The impact of the ocean warming that occurs in regions away from the sea ice loss region is similar in magnitude and structure to the impacts of sea ice loss itself, indicating modelling experiments that do not include ocean feedbacks will underestimate the response. | Ph.D. | climate, ocean | 14 |
| Blackstock, Cynthia (Cindy) | Regehr, Cheryl | When Everything Matters: Comparing the Experiences of First Nations and Non-Aboriginal Children Removed from their Families in Nova Scotia from 2003 to 2005 | Social Work | 2009-11 | The Canadian Incidence Study on Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (Trocme, 2001) found that structural factors such as poverty, poor housing and substance misuse contribute to the over-representation of First Nations children in child welfare care and yet there is very little information on the experiences of First Nations and Non-Aboriginal children after they are placed in care. The When Everything Matters study tracks First Nations and Non-Aboriginal chlidren removed from their families between 2003-2005 in Nova Scotia to the time of reunification or to the time of data collection if the child remained in care. The characteristics of children and their families are compared to the primary aims of child welfare services provided to children and their families. Results indicate that poor families living in poor housing are graphically over-represented among all families who have their children removed. Poverty-related services were not provided to families in proportion to its occurrence. Caregiver incapacity related to substance misuse was most often cited as the primary reason for removal and although substance misuse services were provided there is a need for further child welfare training, policy and services in this area given the scope of the problem presenting in both First Nations and Non-Aboriginal families. Study findings are nested in a new bi-cultural theoretical framework founded in First Nations ontology and physic's theory of everything called the breath of life theory. Implications for theoretical development as well as child welfare research, policy and practice are discussed. | PhD | poverty | 1 |
| Blakelock, Emily Charlotte Vogl | Ross, Jill||Townsend, David | Doing It by the Book: Teaching Sexuality in the Twelfth-Century Classroom | Medieval Studies | 2017-11 | This dissertation demonstrates the extent to which concepts of sexuality were intertwined with teaching and learning in twelfth-century French schools, making a vital connection between the history of education and that of gendered sexuality. Learning, enculturation and socialization were combined in the new urban schools of the twelfth century, in which boys underwent rigorous grammatical and moral training while forming homosocial bonds with their classmates and teachers. Students in their early- to mid- teens would routinely read sexually explicit texts, such as Ovid’s Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris, Terence’s Eunuchus, Statius’ Achilleid, and Juvenal’s satires, as part of their training in Latin literacy. These classical Latin texts were categorized by medieval teachers as “ethical” despite the fact that they contain depictions of rape, adultery, prostitution, cross-dressing and male sodomy. I argue that such discussions of sexuality were incorporated into the program of mores which traditionally accompanied early education in grammatica. My research presents a new perspective on socialization in medieval schools, using classroom texts and commentaries which have rarely been examined as sources for the history of sexuality. Starting with an overview of the role of the medieval school in male social formation, I uncover the pedagogical discourse which connects grammar with sexuality, and with the sexual status of the medieval adolescent student. While Ovid identifies himself as a schoolteacher and establishes “rules” for love and sex with the help of his medieval commentators, and Alan of Lille describes sexual deviance as the result of mislearning the “grammar” of sex, Statius and Terence highlight the inherent gender fluidity and erratic sexual behaviour of adolescent boys, casting doubt on the stability of the boundaries established by such regulatory mechanisms. Juvenal and his twelfth-century commentators add to this discourse by implying that male sodomy is taught through homosocial networks, and identifying adolescent boys as especially prone to learning sodomy, with the school as the site of particular anxiety. These perspectives reflect twelfth-century anxieties about clerical celibacy and homosociality and demonstrate a medieval recognition of the social forces which underpin both education and sexuality. | Ph.D. | educat, gender | 3, 5 |
| Blanchard, Taryn Sheridan | Sidnell, Jack||Cody, Francis | Free Expression Activism in a (Post)Modern World of Risk and Uncertainty | Anthropology | 2019-06 | This thesis is about free expression activists and the central roles that risk and uncertainty play in their experiences. Today, activists who work on an array of free expression issues—including free speech, privacy, and press freedom—are driven by two principle predicaments. The first is the increasing pervasiveness of digital technologies, and the second is an aging liberalism deployed in increasingly conflicting fashions. Both of these predicaments are escalated by the post-9/11 preoccupation with national (in)security and the growing precarity of the neoliberal capitalist order in a world of economic and political globalization. Free expression activists work hard to foster conditions in which freedom can flourish (for themselves and others). But it is not only human rights discourse or other liberal idea(l)s that they appraise, confront, and grapple with on a day-to-day basis to conceive of their obstacles and advance their goals. Equally important are assessments and tools built on risk-based decision-making, discursive strategies that work to identify and harness risk and uncertainty, and other practices and ideologies through which risk and uncertainty are enacted. The goal is frequently to manage or minimize risk and uncertainty, but, by engaging them so strategically, free expression activists also end up accentuating them and giving them new, heightened meaning. Weaving through a series of free expression settings and subgroups, this thesis examines how activists experience and engage risk and uncertainty to achieve their own ends as they work at the intersection of liberalism, technology, and security. During their efforts, issues of personhood and statecraft are negotiated, bureaucratic encounters and network governance are navigated, and the intersubjective work of asking for and delivering help is performed. Moreover, complex contradictions that mark (post)modern life are explored, within which new kinds of power and resistance, as well as questions of morality, are being developed and taken up. | Ph.D. | rights | 16 |
| Bloom, Devin | Lovejoy, Nathan | Transitions between Marine and Freshwaters in Fishes: Evolutionary Pattern and Process | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2013-03 | Evolutionary transitions between marine and freshwater habitats are rare events that can have profound impacts on aquatic biodiversity. The main goal of my thesis is determining the processes involved in transitions between marine and freshwater biomes, and the resulting patterns of diversity using phylogenetic approaches. To test hypotheses regarding the geography, timing, frequency, and mechanisms regulating biome transitions I generated multi-locus time-calibrated molecular phylogenies for groups of fishes that include both exclusively marine and freshwater species. My analysis of anchovies demonstrated that Neotropical freshwater anchovies represent a monophyletic radiation with a single origin in South American freshwaters. I used a phylogeny of herring and allies (Clupeiformes) to investigate the evolution of diadromy, a migratory behavior in which individuals move between oceans and freshwater habitats for reproduction and feeding. These analyses do not support the hypothesis that differences in productivity between marine and freshwater explain the origins of diadromous lineages. Diadromy has been considered an evolutionary pathway for permanent biome transitions, however I found that diadromy almost never produces a fully marine or freshwater clade. Marine lineages often invade continental freshwaters during episodes of marine incursion. In South America, the rich diversity of marine derived fish lineages invaded during Eocene marine incursions from either the Pacific or the Caribbean, and Oligocene marine incursions from the Caribbean. I falsified the highly cited Miocene marine incursion hypothesis, but found that the Pebas Mega-Wetland catalyzed diversification in some marine derived lineages. Using diversification analyses, I investigated the evolutionary processes that have generated disparate patterns of diversity between continents and oceans. I found that freshwater silversides have higher speciation and extinction rates than marine silversides. Lineages accumulation plots suggest ecological limits are not regulating clade growth in either marine or freshwater biomes. Overall, biome conservatism is a widespread pattern among fishes, and this pattern is largely driven by competition in clades that are physiologically capable of biome transitions. Biome transitions are facilitated by rare paleogeographic events, such as marine incursions. Finally, a difference in net diversification rate is the macroevolutionary mechanism that best explains the difference in diversity between continents and oceans. | PhD | biodiversity, fish, conserv, water, marine, ocean | 14, 15 |
| Blum, Joshua | Stewart, Hamish | The Chiarelli Doctrine: Immigration Exceptionalism and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms | Law | 2018-11 | Since the 19th century, American courts have relied on the “plenary power doctrine” to hold that federal immigration law is immune from constitutional challenge. Despite no such rule in Canada, this paper argues that a similar doctrine has silently crept into Canadian constitutional law. With its roots in the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1992 decision in Chiarelli, Canadian courts have set out a doctrine of evasion and technicality that has rendered many of the Charter rights of immigrants and refugees to be effectively non-justiciable. Without explanation, laws that detain, uproot, exile, separate families, and return people to persecution have been exempted from normal standards of justice. This paper charts the emergence of the “Chiarelli doctrine”, critiques its incoherence, and explores why judges have so steadfastly refused to engage with the human rights claims of non-citizens. It concludes with a simple proposal to bring these doctrines of exception to an end. | LL.M. | justice, rights | 16 |
| Bodruzic, Dragana | Wong, Joseph | Sharing Responsibility for Social Welfare Provision between Companies and the State: A Comparison of Brazil and India | Political Science | 2019-11 | In the Global South non-state actors sometimes provide more collectively desirable goods than the state. This includes the engagement of companies through corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects, but an unexplored question remains: under conditions of limited state capacity, how do state and business actors interact in the evolution of systems of social welfare provision? To answer this question, I consider Brazil and India. While existing literature on the relationship between business and the state has found the two to be similar cases, research reveals divergent trends in both how these states promote corporate engagement in social welfare provision, and in how companies take on such roles. I show that Brazil supports social welfare largely through the expansion and universalization of state programs, and promotes CSR through taxation, lending policies and legal arbitration mechanisms. India includes business actors in socioeconomic development to a greater degree and has passed legislation that requires companies to spend a portion of profits on community development in the form of CSR projects. I show that this empirical variation can be explained with reference to three factors: state capacity, prevailing ideas about which actors hold responsibility for social welfare provision, and the historical institutionalization of CSR. State capacity is a permissive condition. Under conditions of limited state capacity, the interplay of prevailing notions of citizenship and ideas about how business and the state should interact combine to shape differing notions of responsibility. In India, the norm that responsibility should be shared between state and corporate actors exists, while in Brazil the state has come to be seen as holding primary responsibility for social welfare. These ideas have subsequently shaped both state policies towards CSR, and companies’ willingness to engage in socioeconomic development. I argue that the Indian state is developing a liberal CSR regime that promotes company engagement in CSR, while also granting companies leeway over their engagement. Companies have responded by expanding their role in delivering collectively desirable goods. The Brazilian state, on the other hand, is developing a statist CSR regime under which the state seeks to maintain control over company involvement in socioeconomic development. | Ph.D. | socioeconomic, taxation, institution | 1, 10, 16 |
| Bohnke, Christin | Fenner, Angelica | Postcolonial Theory Reconsidered: Discourses of Race, Gender, and Imperialism in the German-Japanese Realm | Germanic Languages and Literatures | 2017-11 | This study explores the intersections of race and gender as they manifest in film and print media across a century of transnational flows between Germany and Japan. I argue that German-Japanese relations in the twentieth century invite novel re-readings of existing postcolonial theories, resulting in a productive re-evaluation of inherited terms such as ‘hybridity’ and ‘race’. Each chapter of my dissertation is devoted to a particular strand of the cultural fabric woven between Germany and Japan and its consequences for the broader relationship between East Asia and Europe. Chapter two focuses on the German-language magazine East Asia (Ost-Asien) published by the Japanese Tamai Kisak from 1898-1910 in Berlin, on Kitasato Takeshi’s German-language drama Fumio (1900), and on the silent film Bushido (1926). These works negotiate Japan’s complex situation as simultaneously belonging to an Asian and a European cultural realm in often contradictory ways. Chapter three pursues an in-depth analysis of the German-Japanese relationship between 1932 and 1945 via such diverse cultural artifacts as the results of a German-Japanese essay contest held in 1944, German newsreels, and German-Japanese filmic co-productions. My research demonstrates how the cultural co-productions between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan downplayed questions of race and gender in an attempt to forge a shared identity as Soldatenvölker (soldier people). In my fourth and final chapter, I analyze the contemporary work of one Japanese filmmaker and two Japanese authors who migrated from Japan to Germany after the Second World War: Marie Miyayama, Yoko Tawada and Hisako Matsubara. I will demonstrate how tourism, commodity culture, as well as notions of transculturalism and an increasing convergence of ‘East’ and ‘West’ are paramount for shaping the German-Japanese discourse in the late 20th and early 21st century. | Ph.D. | production, gender | 5, 12 |
| Bolton, Melissa Pauline | Margaret, Schneider | The Impact of MS on Intimate Relationships: The Role of Identity | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2014-11 | The present study explored the qualitative experience of women with multiple sclerosis to delineate the intrapersonal process, relational and broader social influences in the process of identity preservation/or/change. While there is a breadth of literature on the variables associated with relational satisfaction for those with MS, far less has been conducted on how identity is impacted or influences psychosocial adjustment following illness. The findings of this research were applied to broader principles asserted by identity theory and the identity negotiation theory (INT) in an effort to explore whether these theories could share added insight and value into the experience of these women. In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty-two women from across Canada. Our findings suggest that women with MS undergo significant aspects of identity re-negotiation. Participants entered into a process of re-negotiation when they experienced a change in their social roles based upon physical disability. Within our findings was the emergence of three main groups of participants: Participants who did not experience physically disabling symptoms and thereby did not experience any identity disruption; Participants who experienced identity disruption and experienced difficulty with these changes; and those who fared well in their ability to adapt to physical changes and maintain continuity in aspects of their identity. This was influenced by both intrapersonal variables such as ones ability to maintain continuity in role-identities, find acceptance, positive reframe their situation and express gratitude. Moreover, this was also largely influenced by interpersonal feedback and support from their partner and peers.Relational context played a significant role in identity preservation or alteration. An intimate partner played a paramount role in whether women felt self-verified and nourished while undergoing ambiguity associated with ever-changing physical limitations. The variables that facilitated this process included: commitment to identity; relational clarity; continuity; self-verification and an ability to preserve salient aspects of identity despite physical changes. This study highlights the process of identity disruption for this population and provides valuable insight into the process of preserving salient aspects of identity while navigating physical disability both for the individual and the couple. | Ph.D. | women | 5 |
| Bone, Janet Marie | Peterson-Badali, Michele | Understanding of Nurturance and Self-determination Rights in Maltreated Children and Youth | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2013-11 | Increasing access to rights for young people has highlighted the fact that little is known about their thinking and understanding of rights issues. However, expanding children’s access to rights without adequate knowledge of how they understand, experience and are able to use these rights, may be detrimental to their well-being. Thus far, research has explored conceptions of rights in several populations, including school aged children and young offenders, but little attention has been focused on maltreated children – a particularly vulnerable group. The purpose of the current study was to examine conceptions of and attitudes towards children’s nurturance and self-determination rights in 10-18-year-old children with histories of maltreatment who were living in state care. Associations between rights conceptions and attitudes, and factors related to the experience of maltreatment and child welfare care (e.g. type of maltreatment, type of foster care, time in care, and number of foster care placement changes), were explored. Rights concepts were assessed by having participants generate and discuss children’s rights issues arising in three contexts: home, school and the greater community, as well as through general knowledge questions. Attitudes were assessed using the Children’s ii iii Rights Attitudes questionnaire (Peterson-Badali, Morine, Ruck & Day, 2004), a 32 item likert-scale measure of children’s endorsement of various nurturance and self-determination rights. Results indicated that, while maltreated children’s conceptions of rights did frequently vary from previous findings with non-maltreated children, there were also a number of broad-based similarities. Interestingly, while maltreatment and child welfare care variables were largely unrelated to rights conceptions and attitudes, participants’ understanding did appear to be informed by the particular concerns that emerged from their unique circumstances (e.g., the fulfillment of basic needs such as food, clothing, and education). Findings are discussed in relation to theory, research, policy, and practice. | PhD | rights | 16 |
| Bonilla, Sofia | Allen, D. Grant | Protein-Based Conditioners for Enhancing Biosludge Dewaterability | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2017-06 | Synthetic organic polymers are commonly used conditioners to enhance sludge dewaterability. However, these polymers are petroleum-derived, costly and can be toxic to aquatic systems. There have been limited studies on the potential use of enzymes for enhancing the dewaterability of sludge and little is known about the mechanisms for such enhancement. This thesis investigated the potential of using proteins as conditioners for enhancing biosludge dewaterability. Cationic proteins can enhance biosludge dewaterability. This was demonstrated by the conditioning effect on biosludge of lysozyme and protamine. After screening several enzymes, lysozyme was the only enzyme that showed dewatering improvements, increasing the cake solids content of biosludge by up to 5.8%. Active and inactive lysozyme exhibited a similar ability for enhancing sludge dewaterability suggesting a non-enzymatic mechanism. The mechanism by which cationic proteins, such as lysozyme, enhance biosludge dewaterability appears to be charge neutralization. In agreement with this proposed mechanism, it was found that the surface charge of a protein largely determines its potential as a conditioner. Synthetic polymers consistently outperformed cationic proteins increasing biosludge cake solids by up to 7.4%. However, protamine showed a higher flocculating activity than synthetic polymers on kaolin suspensions (up to 36% higher at pH 7 and pH 9). Cationic proteins are biodegradable and can potentially be extracted from waste which can be an advantage over synthetic polymers. Although the enzymes in this study were not found to positively affect the dewaterability of biosludge, enzymes can improve the anaerobic digestibility of biosludge as a result of their enzymatic activity. Treatment with proteases and glycosidases increased biogas yields by 10% after 62 days of anaerobic digestion. Taken together, the findings of this thesis improved the current understanding of how enzymes and proteins can change biosludge, and how these changes affect its dewaterability and anaerobic digestibility. | Ph.D. | water, waste | 12, 14 |
| Bonnell, Jennifer Leigh | Sandwell, Ruth W. | Imagined Futures and Unintended Consequences: An Environmental History of Toronto's Don River Valley | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2010-06 | This dissertation explores human interactions with Toronto’s Don River Valley from the late eighteenth century to the present, focusing on the period of intense urbanization and industrialization between 1880 and 1940. Its concentration on the urban fringe generates new perspectives on the social and environmental consequences of urban development. From its position on the margins, the Don performed vital functions for the urban economy as a provider of raw materials and a sink for wastes. Insights derived from the intersections between social and environmental history are at the heart of this project. The dissertation begins by documenting the industrial history of the river and its transformation from a central provider in the lives of early Toronto residents to a polluted periphery in the latter half of the nineteenth century. An analysis of the valley’s related function as a repository for human “undesirables” reveals connections between the processes that identified certain individuals as deficient “others” and similar imperatives at work in classifying difficult or unpredictable environments as “waste spaces.” Efforts to “reclaim” and improve the river are the subject of the remaining chapters. A series of initiatives between 1870 and 1930 aimed at reconfiguring the lower Don as an efficient corridor for transportation and industrial development reveal in their shortcomings and unintended consequences a failure to accommodate dynamic and often unpredictable ecological processes. Reclamations of a different kind are explored in the conservation movement of the twentieth century, through which the valley emerges as a valuable public amenity. The dissertation concludes by investigating how the valley’s history informs current plans to “renaturalize” the river mouth. Throughout, the Don functions as an autonomous and causal force in the city’s history. On this small river on the urban fringe, nature and society worked in mutually constitutive ways to shape and reshape the metropolis. | PhD | conserv, pollut, environment, waste, urban, industr, water | 9, 11, 13, 14 |
| Boodoo, Muhammad Umar Aabid | Gomez, Rafael | Institutions and Stakeholder Influence on CEO Compensation and Corporate Social Responsibility | Industrial Relations and Human Resources | 2016-11 | This thesis of three (stand-alone) chapters centres around the premise that institutions and stakeholders influence corporate policy, in particular with regards to CEO Compensation, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Chapter 1 focuses on the implicit regulation that unions may pose to corporate governance, and finds that during the financial crisis (2008-2011), union density at corporate level was positively related to non-equity components of CEO pay such as salary and pension contributions with no significant effects on equity components such as options and restricted stock units. These findings have some precedence in the literature but they also go counter to more prominent theoretical predictions and empirical research which posit that unions should in fact reduce CEO compensation. Chapter 2 looks at the influence of unions on CSR profiles and, through the lenses of stakeholder and neo-institutional theories, finds that unions generally tend to gear companies towards more internal rather than external CSR. However, the observed effect of unions on the internal-external CSR profile of companies is not linear. At low levels of unionization, there is a substitution effect where companies substitute internal for external CSR, but at higher levels of unionization, both elements complement and reinforce each other. Drawing from the employment relations literature, I propose that the complementarity perhaps points to a labour-management relationship which is based on more equally-shared power, trust, and loyalty. Chapter 3 looks at the causal impact of regulatory changes on Corporate Social Performance. Using difference-in-difference techniques, I find that forcing companies to disclose CSR practices makes them improve their social performance. I attribute this finding to firms facing higher social pressures and firms being soft targets for activists given that their CSR practices become public information. Further, I find that the social and governance elements of CSR improve more than the environment aspect. This finding bodes well with stakeholder identification and salience theory, which posits that stakeholders who have power and whose claims are more legitimate and urgent will be given more attention by management. All three chapters reinforce the hypothesis that institutional pressure and stakeholder pressure have an impact on Corporate policy. The data used in this thesis come from new and proprietary sources, and cover three different countries (Canada, the UK, and India), adding to the expansion of the management literature. | Ph.D. | employment, labour, institution, governance | 8, 16 |
| Borden, Kira Alia | Isaac, Marney E | Root Ecology for Sustainable Agroecosystems: Intraspecific Variation in a Pan-Tropical Tree Crop | Geography | 2018-11 | Agroecosystems that rely on higher levels of biodiversity and fewer inputs to sustain both crop production and ecosystem function require a dramatic shift away from a one-size-fits-all approach to management. Notably, this means that phenotypic expression of plants on farms cannot be assumed constant, as biotic and abiotic conditions in low-input, biodiverse agroecosystems are complex. To accurately assess and predict plant and ecosystem function in these agroecosystems, we require a more robust understanding of the drivers and consequences of intraspecific variation in plants. This includes root systems, which are arguably understudied but have a critical role in resource acquisition and use. To this end, I carried out research on the root systems of an economically important and widely cultivated tree crop, | Ph.D. | biodiversity | 15 |
| Borduas, Nadine | Abbatt, Jonathan P. D.||Murphy, Jennifer G. | The Atmospheric Fate of Organic Nitrogen Compounds | Chemistry | 2015-11 | Organic nitrogen compounds are present in our atmosphere from biogenic and anthropogenic sources and have impacts on air quality and climate. Due to recent advances in instrumentation, these compounds are being detected in the gas and particle phases, raising questions as to their source, processing and sinks in the environment. With their recently identified role as contributors to aerosol formation and growth, their novel large scale use as solvents in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and their emissions from cigarette smoke, it is now important to address the gaps in our understanding of the fate of organic nitrogen. Experimentally and theoretically, I studied the chemical atmospheric fate of specific organic nitrogen compounds in the amine, amide and isocyanate families, yielding information that can be used in chemical transport models to assess the fate of this emerging class of atmospheric molecules. I performed kinetic laboratory studies in a smog chamber to measure the room temperature rate coefficient for reaction with the hydroxyl radical of monoethanolamine, nicotine, and five different amides. I employed online-mass spectrometry techniques to quantify the oxidation products. I found that amines react quickly with OH radicals with lifetimes of a few hours under sunlit conditions, producing amides as oxidation products. My studies on amides revealed that they have much longer lifetimes in the atmosphere, ranging from a few hours to a week. Photo-oxidation of amides produces isocyanates and I investigated these mechanisms in detail using ab initio calculations. Furthermore, I experimentally measured isocyanic acid’s Henry’s Law constant as well as its hydrolysis rate constants to better understand its sinks in the atmosphere. Finally, I re-examined the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of organic nitrogen molecules for improved model parameterizations. | Ph.D. | climate | 13 |
| Boroomand-Rashti, Siamak | Portelli, John P | Student Decision-Making in the Classroom: An Examination of Existing Theories and a Model for Mainstream Implementation | Social Justice Education | 2018-06 | Authors such as Bill Glasser, A. S. Neill, and John Holt have critiqued the compulsory nature of secondary schools and the inherent structure imposed on them by educational authorities. This structure limits student opportunities to make decisions regarding their own learning. This thesis examines the concept of student decision-making and its effect on student learning in educational environments. It argues for inclusion of more student-centred decision-making opportunities as part of a democratic education model. The thesis analyzes different educational theories and models that grant students, to varying extents, chances to make decisions about their own learning. The thesis presents an alternative to the current system: a model that questions imposed structures and places the student at the centre of the decision-making process, while asking educators to consider their roles as facilitators. The thesis begins by summarizing the prescribed Ontario Ministry of Education requirements, followed by an examination of the concept of decision-making itself, beginning with philosophical justifications through analysis of the works of authors such as Gutmann, Levinson, and Brighouse. Next, the thesis examines certain theories of education in order to give context for the proposed model. The existing theories selected range from liberal conceptions to critical pedagogy to “unschooling”; each theory is analyzed and discussed with respect to how student decision-making is supported. The next two chapters focus specifically on existing educational models where student decision-making is recognized through specific methods and strategies. Models include Glasser’s Choice Theory, the Montessori School method, self-determination theory, the Sudbury Valley School, and Summerhill School—the latter two affording students numerous decision-making opportunities in explicit and widespread ways. The thesis concludes with the proposed model, referred to as the Student Decision-Making Model, which could be implemented in Ontario high school classrooms, with considerations made regarding if and how changes to Ministry structure are needed. The model recognizes the student as the central character in the school decision-making process and is illustrated with an exemplar known as the Time Use Exemplar. The model’s combined focus on student choice and Ministry regulation allows it to reach the maximum number of students. | Ed.D. | educat | 4 |
| Borovilos, Rena | Dietsche, Peter | The Impact of Dual Credit Programs on College Students: A Comparative Study of Dual Credit Participants and Non-dual Credit Participants in One Ontario College | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2015-06 | Dual Credit Programs were introduced to the province of Ontario in 2005 as part of an educational reform initiative designed to help more students graduate high school and transition to college. The number of Ontario Dual Credit Programs has grown tremendously over the years but research has not kept pace with program expansion. This study was conducted to help fill that research gap. This study investigated the impact of Dual Credit Programs on college students by focusing on a group of students who participated in dual credit courses and activities and subsequent postsecondary programs at Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning (Humber College) in Toronto, Ontario. The study also included a comparison group of non-dual credit participants who attended postsecondary education at the same institution and at the same time as the dual credit participants. Best described as a retrospective longitudinal study, this mixed methods research involved three data sources: college student records, college students, and college faculty. The data used in this study was derived from the student records, an online student survey, student interviews, and faculty interviews. College students who were previously enrolled in dual credit courses and comparators with no dual credit experience were found to differ in college preparation, college engagement, and college success but not college persistence. However, independent analyses of the college records of dual credit participants showed them to differ on college persistence depending on the number of dual credit courses they completed. The findings of this study have implications for policy and practice, theory development, and future research in the dual credit area. | Ph.D. | educat | 4 |
| Boskovic, Branko | McMillan, Robert | Air Quality, Externalities, and Decentralized Environmental Regulation | Economics | 2013-06 | This dissertation investigates the causes and effects of the decentralization of environmental regulation. In Chapter 1, I provide an historical overview of air pollution regulation in the U.S., which serves as the context for this dissertation. Chapter 2 develops a model of interjurisdictional environmental regulation where economic and pollution spillovers may arise. I show that these spillovers may cause local jurisdictions to seek decentralized regulatory control, which in turn generates inefficient outcomes. Chapter 3 investigates empirically whether the decentralization of air pollution regulation in the U.S. during 1971-1990 caused an increase in transboundary air pollution. I find that the transfer of regulatory authority from the federal government to an individual state generated a significant increase in air pollution observed at monitors in downwind states. These findings vary with distance to those states creating transboundary spillovers and across pollutants with different atmospheric lifetimes. This is consistent with the notion that local governments do not account for externalities that their policies generate. The final chapter estimates a model of interjurisdictional environmental regulation that allows for transboundary pollution and competition for firms. The interdependence in jurisdictions’ regulatory choices from the spillovers creates a challenging identification problem, which I address using exclusion restrictions derived from the atmospheric physics of pollution propagation. For total suspended particulates, transboundary pollution will typically occur only between contiguous neighbours in the direction of the wind. This implies that exogenous factors affecting pollution dispersion (such as wind velocity) in distant jurisdictions can serve as instruments for neighbours' endogenous policy choices: they do not affect a given jurisdiction's regulatory choice directly, but directly affect the choices of that jurisdiction's neighbours. I find that a shift from centralized to state regulatory control causes significant increases in the number of polluting firms that locate in that state and decreases elsewhere; the same shift increases ambient air pollution at home and in other states. I also find that state regulatory choices respond much more to changes in the number of firms than to pollution. Further, I show that the degree of decentralization and the observed pollution outcomes are far from the counterfactual efficient levels. | PhD | wind, environment, pollut | 7, 13 |
| Bourgeois, Robyn Sanderson | Sherene, Razack | Warrior Women: Indigenous Women's Anti-violence Engagement with the Canadian State | Social Justice Education | 2014-11 | This study examines indigenous women's involvement in state-sponsored anti-violence responses since the 1980s. It focuses on three fields of political engagement: (1) the Canadian state politics of family violence; (2) the Native Women's Association of Canada's(NWAC) "Sisters in Spirit" (SIS) initiative and the politics of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls; and (3) the politics of prostitution and the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. Overall, I argue that despite navigating a complex and colonizing political terrain largely out of their control, indigenous women have been "warrior women," advancing strong anti-colonial anti-violence responses that support the end goal of ending violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada. I also explore how indigenous women have sometimes employed political discourses and strategies that while appearing to offer a valid pathway of resistance, replicate dominant discourses and strategies and, thus, serve to undermine these efforts by securing the colonial Canadian state's authority over indigenous peoples and territories and, therefore, the persistence of violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada. To reinforce both of these claims, this study addresses reception: that is, I argue that the Canadian state's responses to violence against indigenous women and girls have been driven by self-interest and state political agendas which, because of the adversarial nature of colonial domination, rarely coincide with the interests or needs of indigenous women and their communities. Furthermore, I show that the state's response to indigenous women's anti-violence resistance can be favorable when it can be reconciled with its self-interest and political agendas, but quickly moves to appropriation and suppression if these anti-violence politics threaten Canadian state dominance. | Ph.D. | women | 5 |
| Boutcher, Faith D | Gagliardi, Anna | A Multi-Methods Study of the Role of Middle Managers in Brokering Knowledge in Hospitals | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2019-11 | Hospitals are complex environments that are accountable for the quality of the services they provide. The quality of care in hospitals, however, is often less than ideal – patients may not receive treatments with proven effectiveness or may receive unnecessary or even potentially harmful care (Grimshaw et al., 2012; McGlynn et al., 2003). Hospital managers play a pivotal role in facilitating high quality care and may play a brokerage role in the sharing and use of knowledge in healthcare organizations (Birkin et al., 2018; Urquhart et al., 2019). The body of research on knowledge brokers (KBs) suggests that they may have multiple roles, but prior research has focused primarily on KBs in formal roles external to the practice community they seek to influence (CHSRF, 2003). Little is known about internal KB roles, and it remains unclear how the KB role is enacted in health care. There is a dearth of research on what impact KBs within organizations have in brokering knowledge in hospitals (Burgess Currie, 2014; Glegg Hoens, 2016). Although middle managers (MMs) may potentially play a key role as KBs, how MMs act as KBs in health care has not been adequately studied in Canada or elsewhere (Birkin et al., 2018; Currie et al., 2014). This multi-methods study examined the role that MMs play in brokering knowledge in hospitals, the determinants of their KB efforts, and the impact of those efforts. The findings of a qualitative descriptive study, using semi-structured interviews with MMs in hospitals across Ontario, Canada, conducted concurrently with a Critical Interpretive Synthesis of the literature, found that MMs enact many of the roles and activities of knowledge brokers in hospitals to create, share or implement an innovative or evidence-based practice. In addition to roles and activities, this study contributes to the extant literature by revealing determinants that may influence MM KBs efforts and their impact in hospitals and by providing actionable insights into how to optimize the role. This study also makes recommendations that administrators and policy makers can use to strengthen KB roles to better equip MM KBs to ultimately improve quality of care. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Boutilier, Justin James | Chan, Timothy CY | Emergency Medical Services Response Optimization | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2018-11 | Time-sensitive medical emergencies are responsible for one-third of all deaths worldwide and similarly affect both developed and developing countries. Emergency medical services (EMS) provide rapid out-of-hospital treatment for time-sensitive medical emergencies. In this thesis, we combine optimization and machine learning to solve challenging EMS response problems in two diverse settings: Dhaka, Bangladesh - an urban center in a developing country, and Toronto, Canada - an urban center in a developed country. These settings are unified by uncertainty and stochasticity leading to new robust and chance-constrained optimization problems. In both cities, we employ machine learning to integrate real data with our optimization models. The second chapter develops a unified framework for emergency response optimization under travel time (edge-length) and demand (node-weight) uncertainty that is suitable for developing urban centers. We traveled to Dhaka to conduct field research resulting in the collection of two unique datasets that we leverage to estimate demand for EMS and to predict travel times in the road network. We carefully integrate our predictions and robust optimization model to develop an efficient solution algorithm for large-scale problems. We use our framework to provide an in-depth investigation into four key policy-related questions. The third and fourth chapters focus on improving EMS response for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Chapter 3 employs a simplified location-queuing framework to quantify the potential benefit from using drones to deliver automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to OHCAs. We demonstrate, using data from 50,000 historical OHCAs covering 26,000 square kilometers around Toronto, that a drone network has the potential to significantly reduce AED delivery time. Chapter 4 develops a two-stage machine learning approach to simulate cardiac arrest incidents and an integrated location-queuing model tailored to the problem of drone-delivered AEDs. Our model combines the p-median framework with an explicit M/M/d queue to determine the minimum number of drones required to meet a pre-specified response time goal (average or 90th percentile), while guaranteeing that a sufficient number of drones are located at each base. We develop a novel reformulation technique that exploits the baseline (EMS) response times, allowing us to optimally solve large-scale instances and provide policy insights. | Ph.D. | health, urban | 3, 11 |
| Bouzigon, Mylène | Roach, Kent | The Application of Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Searches Conducted for Purposes of National Security Intelligence | Law | 2017-11 | This paper proposes an approach to the interpretation and application of section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms where searches by the state are effected in the course of ensuring national security, more specifically in producing national security intelligence. Having outlined the principles developed by the courts in applying section 8, it suggests that the stateâ s interest in national security is one of the highest order, resulting in it weighing heavily in balancing against individualsâ privacy interests. In the course of its examination, it describes national security intelligence and criminal investigations as different paradigms, justifying different treatments. It proposes that the Hunter v Southam standard remains available in areas where privacy stakes are the most serious, to begin to slide toward that of reasonable suspicion at earlier points than it would in criminal matters, remaining modulated by the expectation of privacy or degree of intrusion. | LL.M. | rights | 16 |
| Bowley, Gregory Freeman Wayne | Green, Andrew | The Weakest Link? Evaluating Private Nuisance Liability in Ontario's Environmental Law Context | Law | 2015-11 | The Court of Appeal for Ontario’s decision in Smith v Inco Ltd illustrates the degree to which the law of private nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher liability has evolved over the last hundred and fifty years from strict(ish) liability tort doctrines to fault-based means of recovery. Inco also offers an opportunity to consider whether this evolution has left some wronged landowners behind. This work considers the evolution of private nuisance and Rylands liability into the tort doctrine(s) they are today, and illustrates the Province of Ontario’s statutory response to that evolution in the environmental contamination context. Ontario’s common law and statutory environmental compensation regime is then evaluated in the context of four distinct measures of wrongfulness from two theoretical schools of liability. Where Ontario’s regime is found to permit wrongful loss without recovery, statutory changes to extend rights of compensation to all landowners suffering wrongful loss are proposed. | LL.M. | environment, rights | 13, 16 |
| Boye, Seika Letitia Ajokor | Johnson, Stephen B | Looking for Social Dance in Toronto's Black Population at Mid-century: A Historiography | Drama | 2017-06 | The documentation of social dance within the lives of African-Canadians at mid-century is largely undocumented. This dissertation asks the question: Where did Toronto’s black population go to social dance during the 1950s and what is learned about African-Canadians via the lens of social dance? Through archival research I interrogate both sources and methodological approaches applied to social dance and/or African-Canadian historical work. I argue against reading African-Canadian documents and histories through dominant African-American historical narratives, proposing that historical and cultural overlaps are better understood in tandem with moments of departure into African-Canadian specificity. I look to Canadian contexts pertaining to social dance, legislation, trans-cultural exchange via black sleeping car porters on the train, leisure venues and music to inform close readings of photographs, newspapers and oral histories. This work emerges at the intersection of dance studies, Black Studies, performance studies, visual culture and cultural history and historiography. It proposes ways to contextualize doubt in archival research when verification is unavailable due to the systemic exclusion of African-Canadian and other marginalized bodies from Canada’s historical record. Through case studies my research looks at: photographs as a complex tool of equal rights advocacy; text-based documents that reveal the reinforcement of racist stereotypes through language about the black dancing body and repeated reports of discrimination in searches for “negro” and “dance” in mainstream newspapers; and oral histories as both invaluable and troubling documents that at once conceal and expose otherwise undocumented information pertaining to racism, social dance and African-Canadian heterogeneity. Despite shifting municipal, provincial and federal legislation in 1950s Toronto, leisure culture remained segregated. Alternative venues where African-Canadians gathered for social dancing include the Home Service Association, Universal Negro Improvement Association and University Settlement House (USH). While each of these spaces had unique mandates in terms of communities served, social dances at all three venues were attended by both black and non-black populations during the 1950s. These social dances are reported to have played otherwise inaccessible African-American blues and rock and roll music and resulted in repeated and ongoing interracial community gathering that was not otherwise reflected within mainstream culture. Social dance is proven to be a site of revelation about race, class, gender, generation and the African-Canadian population at mid-century. | Ph.D. | gender, rights | 5, 16 |
| Bozak, Nadia | Cazdyn, Eric ||Keil, Charlie | The Disposable Camera: Image, Energy, Environment | Comparative Literature | 2008-03 | “The Disposable Camera” theorizes the relationship between the cinematic image and energy resources. Framed by the emergent carbon-neutral cinema, the recent UCLA report on the film industry’s environmental footprint, as well as common perceptions about digital sustainability, “The Disposable Camera” posits that cinema has always been aware of its connection to the environment, the realm from which it sources its power, raw materials and, often enough, subject matter. But because the natural environment is so inextricably embedded within film’s basic means of production, distribution and reception, its effects remain as overlooked as they are complex. “The Disposable Camera” argues that cinematic history and theory can and indeed ought to be reappraised against the emerging ascendancy of environmental politics, all films; as such, all cinema could logically be included within the analytical parameters of this project. Primary focus, however, is given to documentary cinema, as well as notable experimental and narrative films. Selected texts do not overtly represent an environmental issue; rather, they reflexively engage with and theorize themselves as films, thus addressing the technological, industrial, and resource-derived essence of the moving image. Of import here are films that reveal how specific formal or aesthetic choices evidence and critique the ideology attached to resource consumption and/ or abuse. While it composes a distinctly environmental trajectory of the cinematic image, this project likewise historicizes and critiques these same stages and also challenges the utopian and/ or apocalyptical tendencies challenging eco-politics. Additionally, “The Disposable Camera” is committed to mapping out the shift from a distinctly tangible celluloid-based cinematic infrastructure to the ostensibly immaterial form of digital filmmaking. Indeed, the tension that now pits cinema’s material past against its immaterial future corresponds with the decline of natural reality on the one hand and the rise of cyber realities on the other, a parallel condition that fully evidences the increasingly palpable overlap between environmental and cinematic politics. | PhD | energy, industr, consum, production, environment | 7, 9, 12, 13 |
| Bradley, Beverly Dawn | Cheng, Yu-Ling | A Systems Analysis and Operations Research Approach to Optimizing Health Technology Allocation for Low-income Countries: The case of medical oxygen for childhood pneumonia in The Gambia | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2017-11 | Medical oxygen is essential for treating childhood pneumonia - the leading cause of death in children under five worldwide. Unfortunately, oxygen is not widely available in many low-resource settings due to challenges such as cost, supply logistics, variability in oxygen demand, poor electricity supply, lack of trained staff, and inadequate maintenance capacity. Currently, no systematic approaches exist to help health systems plan appropriate oxygen supply systems that cost-effectively meet the needs of health facilities given these complex challenges. This thesis presents a novel operations research (OR) approach to medical oxygen technology planning in low-resource settings. A decision-support model â OxOpt â was developed to identify the optimal combination of technologies that will meet the needs of health facilities facing resource constraints. The model applies a unique combination of simulation and optimization approaches never before combined to address a global health resource allocation problem. A discrete-event simulation model simulates health facility-level activities such as clinical demand for oxygen, power interruptions and equipment breakdowns, using primary and secondary data collected specifically for this context. A genetic algorithm-based optimization model identifies optimal technology strategies that will satisfy simulated oxygen needs. The model takes into account seasonal variability in oxygen demand, alternative energy options, and the costs of technology, energy and training. It also estimates the number of patients treated and lives saved as a result of recommended solutions. The design of the OxOpt model is informed by several important analyses. A study of oxygen concentrator maintenance histories contributes previously lacking data on long-term functionality in a low-resource setting, providing insight into the cost of parts, expected lifespans, frequency of failures and technician training needs. Based on an analysis of alternative energy sources, a decision-tree was developed to guide decisions about appropriate energy choices given system costs and grid electricity availability. OxOpt functionality is demonstrated for the case of The Gambia, through scenarios exploring healthcare equity in resource allocation, climate change, and changes in technology. An OR approach to oxygen planning, which can be applied more broadly to other health technologies, can improve the efficient use of limited resources and identify cost-effective solutions that save lives. | Ph.D. | health, production | 3, 12 |
| Braga, Juarez | Lee, Douglas S | Investigation and Management of Coronary Artery Disease Among Patients with Heart Failure in Ontario | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2020-06 | Background: The investigation and management of heart failure (HF) requires extensive use of healthcare resources in Ontario, Canada. Methods: Four cohort studies using administrative databases were conducted to describe the epidemiology of HF; to assess the use of cardiac imaging and coronary revascularization; and to determine the significance of non-obstructive coronary artery disease on clinical outcomes. Results: The incidence rate of HF decreased 32% from 380 new cases (95% CI, 376-384) per 100,000 individuals in 2002 to 256 (95% CI, 254-259) per 100,000 in 2016 (P | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Bramwell, Allison F. | Wolfe, David A. | Networks Are Not Enough: Urban Governance and Workforce Development in Three Ontario Cities | Political Science | 2010-06 | Cities everywhere are struggling to develop strategic responses to vast and rapid economic changes brought about by globalization while mediating the social impact of economic change. Workforce development is a policy area that straddles the divide between economic development and social welfare imperatives. This thesis examines local networks supporting workforce development activities in three Ontario cities in order to better understand the dynamics of urban governance in Canada. The analysis focuses on the two central questions of whether cities have the political autonomy to develop their own strategic workforce development networks, and if so, do these networks reflect efforts to integrate economic development and social welfare considerations. It engages with three theoretical perspectives that offer different explanations for local governance dynamics: neo-institutionalist theories argue that higher institutional structures shape and constrain local governance efforts; the critique of neo-liberalism argues that local governance dynamics will be dominated by the interests of capital for economic development; and theories of urban governance argue that cities have the autonomy to shape their own governance efforts. Theories of urban governance also focus analytical attention on how the patterns of interaction between local state and non-state actors shape local governance dynamics. The study does find evidence of local workforce development networks, and finds that these networks vary according to the patterns of interaction between local state and non-state actors. From a neo-institutionalist perspective, however, the study also finds that macro-institutional policy frameworks shape and constrain these local governance efforts. | PhD | cities, urban, institution, employment, economic growth | 8, 11, 16 |
| Bray-Collins, Elinor Flora | Sandbrook, Richard | Sectarianism from Below: Youth Politics in Post-war Lebanon | Political Science | 2016-11 | In this dissertation I examine why sectarianism persists among Lebanese youth. While much of the literature on communal conflict focuses on macro-level factors and elite-based explanations, I look to different, finer, levels of analysis for a fuller picture of how communal dynamics are reproduced, and why they persist—even where the literature would expect to find them lacking, such as among educated, economically secure young Lebanese, in western-oriented universities, or civil society movements. I argue that youth themselves, and particularly the young partisans of Lebanon’s political parties, play an active role in the reproduction and rejuvenation of sectarian political dynamics ‘from below.’ The networking, strategies, and activities of youth within their political spheres constitute a ‘feedback mechanism’ operating at the grassroots to reproduce Lebanon’s particular sectarian institutional configuration. I contend that youth not only contribute to the reproduction of sectarianism, they also help to adapt it and rejuvenate its appeal among their peers. I examine three spheres of youth politics: the university campus; youth-led civil society movements; and youth wings of political parties. I find that far from being the ‘blind followers’ of manipulative elites depicted in the literature, partisan youth act with more autonomy than is often assumed; generating new culture, styles, and social networks—all of which are imbued with sectarian affiliation. I also show that the politics of Lebanese youth are complex, ambivalent, and sometimes contradictory. Youth pursue multiple agendas—not only sectarian ones. In some cases, partisan youth even challenge their sect-based parties to develop more transparent, democratic institutions. Their efforts, however, get shut-down by political elites. Thus, while youth enjoy relative autonomy within their own political realms, the closer they come to the power of Lebanon’s elites, the more limited it becomes. This study contributes to debates on path dependency, the persistence of communal categories, and challenges dichotomous conceptions of youth politics. To understand the political role of youth as more than simply the “hope” or “threat” for democracy, I argue we must look closely at the politics of everyday life and grassroots realms, and take youth seriously as political actors in their own right. | Ph.D. | institution | 16 |
| Breen, Andrea | Arnold, Mary Louise | The Construction of Self-identity and Positive Behavioural Change in Pregnant and Parenting Young Women | Human Development and Applied Psychology | 2010-11 | The purpose of this mixed method study was to investigate the relationship between the narrative construction of self-identity and positive change in antisocial behaviour in pregnant and parenting young women. It focused on two related aspects of identity development: (1) individuals’ conceptualizations of their personally salient self-values; and (2) “self-action coherence”: the process of constructing self-narratives that establish coherence between one’s personally salient self-values and behaviour. This study also included a qualitative exploration of how becoming a mother in adolescence and early adulthood is related to processes of identity development and behavioural change. Participants were 27 pregnant and parenting young women (ages 16 to 22) recruited from youth-serving agencies in Toronto, Ontario. Participants completed a questionnaire on history of engagement in antisocial behaviour and a semi-structured interview that explored self-identity and critical life experiences. Analyses of participant interviews suggest that positive behavioural change in pregnant and parenting young women is related to active engagement in self-reflection motivated by a convergence of meaning gleaned from a variety of life experiences, including the transition to motherhood. Quantitative findings suggest that: (1) an orientation to relational values is related to lower reported recent engagement in antisocial behaviour; (2) self-action coherence develops across adolescence and early adulthood; and (3) self-action coherence is related to reported positive behavioural change. Overall, the findings suggest that an orientation to relationships is important for establishing positive patterns of behaviour and that positive behavioural change in pregnant and parenting young women involves a process of constructing personally salient self-values and establishing behaviours that cohere with these values. The findings have theoretical implications relating to identity development in adolescence and early adulthood and its relations to behavioural functioning. The findings also have implications for applied work with pregnant and parenting young women with histories of antisocial behaviour. | PhD | women | 5 |
| Brennan, Terri-Lynn Kay | Dei, George Jerry Sefa | Spiritual Diversity in Modern Ontario Catholic Education: How Youth Imbue an Anti-colonial Identity Through Faith | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2010-11 | Approximately one in two parents across the province of Ontario, regardless of personal religious beliefs, now choose to enrol their children in a public Roman Catholic secondary school over the public secular school counterpart. The Ontario Roman Catholic school system has historically struggled for recognition and independence as an equally legitimate system in the province. Students in modern schools regard religion and spirituality as critical aspects to their individual identities, yet this study investigates the language and knowledge delivered within the systemic marginalization and colonial framework of a Euro-centric school system and the level of inclusivity and acceptance it affords its youth. Using a critical ethnographic methodology within a single revelatory case study, this study presents the voices of youth as the most critical voice to be heard on identity and identity in faith in Ontario Roman Catholic schools. Surveys with students and student families are complemented with in-depth student interviews, triangulated with informal educational staff interviews and the limited literature incorporating youth identity in modern Ontario Roman Catholic schools. Through the approach of an anti-colonial discursive framework, incorporating a theology of liberation that emphasizes freedom from oppression, the voice of Roman Catholic secondary school youth are brought forth as revealing their struggle for identity in a system that intentionally hides identity outside of being Roman Catholic. Broader questions discussed include: (a) What is the link between identity, schooling and knowledge production?; (b) How do the different voices of students of multi-faiths, educators, administrators, and so forth, contradict, converge and diverge from each other?; (c) How are we to understand the role and importance of spirituality in schooling, knowledge production, and claims of Indigenity and resistance to colonizing education?; (d) What does it mean to claim spirituality as a valid way of knowing?; (e) In what way does this study help understand claims that spirituality avoids splitting of the self?; (f) How do we address the fact that our cultures today are threatened by the absence of community?; and (g) What are the pedagogic and instructional relevancies of this work for the classroom teacher? | EDD | inclusive | 4 |
| Brennenstuhl, Sarah K. | McDonough, Peggy ||Worts, Diana | The Welfare State and Socioeconomic Inequalities in Women’s Health Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Four OECD Countries | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2014-03 | While it is known that social policies influence the organization of employment and family life, this knowledge is rarely used to understand women's health. The current study uses feminist welfare state theory to examine socioeconomic inequalities in women's health dynamics in countries differing by the extent to which their social policies encourage male breadwinning and female caring/homemaking. The pathways underlying these inequalities are also investigated. Socioeconomic inequalities in health are hypothesized to be largest in strong male-breadwinner states (Britain/Germany), smallest in weak male-breadwinner welfare states (Denmark), and intermediate in modified male-breadwinner states (France). Further, family and income will explain more of health inequalities in strong and modified versus weak male-breadwinner regimes. The analysis uses longitudinal data from the European Community Household Panel (1994-2001) for working-aged women from Britain (n=2,193), Germany (n=2,421), France (n=2,400) and Denmark (n=1,412). The effects of socioeconomic position (measured by education) on self-rated health trajectories are examined using Latent Growth Curve Models; model estimates iii are compared cross-nationally using z-scores. Pathways linking education to health are identified by determining how much employment status, family roles and household income attenuate health inequalities in each country. The analyses are repeated for a sub-sample of mothers of young children—a group for whom policies surrounding the integration of employment and family are critical. Low education predicts worse initial health in all countries, but not faster health decline. Against expectations, education-based inequalities in health are largest in weak male-breadwinner states, but income explains virtually none of that inequality. By contrast, income has a larger explanatory role in regimes where women's unpaid caregiving is encouraged. Employment status is a relatively important mediator of the education-health relationship in all policy contexts, while family roles are not. Restricting the analysis to mothers reveals a much smaller education gradient in health in Denmark, providing evidence that weak male-breadwinner states are most effective at reducing health inequalities among mothers, relative to all women. Feminist welfare state theory better predicts cross-national differences in pathways underlying socioeconomic inequalities in health than the magnitude of inequalities, and may be most useful for understanding the health of mothers with young children. | PhD | socioeconomic, health, women, inequality | 1, 3, 5, 10 |
| Briggs, Anthony Quincy | McCready, Lance T | Looking for Work: How Second Generation Caribbean Black Male Youth Make Sense of Social Mobility, Social Networks and Employment Opportunities in Toronto | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2017-06 | ABSTRACT This dissertation project examines the ways in which working class Caribbean Black Males Youth (CBMY) that are in precariously employed seek to get full- time employment. These CBMY are subjected to being unprepared to access employment for two main reasons, either they fall into the 50% drop out rate (Allahar, 2010; Dei, 2008; Gordon Zinga, 2012; James, 2011) or these men fall into the 52 % of precariously employed in the Greater Toronto Area (Lewchuck et al., 2014; Block Galabuzi, 2011). Post high school transitions into the job market for these Black Males are expressed through their viewpoints. My research is theoretically grounded in Critical Race Theory in acknowledging that racism is embedded in Canadian life moving to capsulize the various complex ways CBMY navigate the demands of the market place in the city of Toronto. The aim is to conceptualize the meaning making process through key elements (i.e., schooling experiences, family experiences, peers conversations) shaped by their choices on deciding on particular kinds of employment. I argue that dominant social ideals of manhood are influenced by privileged, white, male middle-class standards. I therefore interrogate how CBMY make sense of themselves, either within or outside of these conventional standards of manhood and masculinity as it relates to precarious work. Based on these larger research arguments, I critically examine how CBMY address social issues of mobility, social networks and employment opportunities from their own perspectives. | Ph.D. | employment | 8 |
| Bright, Jennifer Elizabeth | Garrett, Frances | Women and Hormones in Tibetan Medical Literature | Religion, Study of | 2017-03 | This dissertation examines a contemporary genre of Tibetan medical writings that seek to integrate Tibetan medical and biomedical notions of “hormones” in the reproductive bodies of women. The analytical lens of ‘gender’ plays a significant role in this dissertation, specifically the ways in which medical and Buddhist language and literature surrounding the Tibetan integration of biomedical notions of hormones deeply implicates modern-day Tibetan national, ethnic, and religious identities. This dissertation provides overviews and analyses of a selection of recently published Tibetan medical works that research methods to integrate and articulate biomedical notions of ‘hormones’ into the Tibetan medical system. These works include book-length commentaries, medical journal articles, book chapters, and home reference books that focus on women’s health. This dissertation analyzes the relationship between establishing medical authority with the practice of textual research in present-day Tibetan medical writing in ‘Chinese Tibet,’ and how ‘hormones’ are the central point of intersection and integration between the Tibetan medical and biomedical systems. Many present-day Tibetan medical authors turn to Buddhist thought, and specifically the texts and language of Tantra, to explicate and articulate the Tibetan understanding of hormones. In their research into the authoritative and classical texts of their traditions, the majority of the authors discussed within this dissertation argue that it can be definitively established that the classical Indo-Tibetan medical and Buddhist writers and experts ‘knew’ about the very subtle substances circulating throughout the body that are today known in biomedicine as “hormones.” | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Bristow, David | Kennedy, Christopher A. | Thermodynamics and the Sustainability of Cities | Civil Engineering | 2013-06 | Cities interact with and rely on energy in complex ways. Fundamentally cities rely upon high quality energy and outputs of low quality for their very existence. The energy flows and transformations enabling cities are tied to physical limits imposed by thermodynamics. Understanding of these limits and the relationships among energy and cities, it is revealed herein, is of vital importance to the sustainability of cities. Four contributions to this understanding are provided. The first articulates how the thermodynamic forces driving cities, together with the dynamic environment within which cities reside, stipulates what type of activities within cities are sustainable. Second, a model depicting the scaling relationship between urban energy use and economic output is devised, and it’s fit to historical data demonstrated via nonlinear regression. By differentiating between energy used to grow and energy used to maintain economic output the model illustrates how reductions in these values on a per dollar basis abets growth while the reverse delays growth, or stops it altogether when energy needs for maintenance become too high. Third, an exergy network conceptualization of cities is developed that reveals the structure of the exergy flows in a city. The topology of the network drastically alters the city’s ability to maximize usefulness of imported energy as well as alter that variability in the amount of usefulness extracted. Finally, the resilience of cities with respect to energy is presented by considering the energy storage and buffer capacity of the urban metabolism. The city of Toronto is shown to have adequate flexibility in food and transport fuels to withstand operation for days without undue interruption of typical activities. Together these differing aspects of the open non-equilibrium details of cities establish an improved prescription of the sustainable city. | PhD | environment, urbban, energy, resilien | 7, 11, 13 |
| Brolley, Michael | Park, Andreas||Malinova, Katya | Essays in Market Microstructure | Economics | 2015-11 | This thesis examines the impact of various financial market innovations on trading in limit order markets, with a focus on financial market quality and investor welfare. Chapter 1 is a joint work with Katya Malinova. We model a financial market where privately informed investors trade in a limit order book monitored by low-latency liquidity providers. Price competition between informed limit order submitters and low-latency market makers allows us to capture trade-offs between informed limit and market orders in a methodologically simple way. In Chapter 2, I develop a model to examine the impact of dark pool trade-at rules. Dark pools—trading systems that do not publicly display orders—fill orders at a price better than the prevailing displayed quote, but do not guarantee execution. This improvement is known as the “trade-at rule”. In my model, investors, who trade on private information or liquidity needs, can elect to trade on a visible market, or a dark market where limit orders are hidden. A competitive liquidity provider participates in both markets. The dark market accepts market orders from investors, and if a limit order is available, fills the order at a price better than the displayed quote by a percentage of the bid-ask spread (the trade-at rule). The impact of dark trading on measures of market quality and social welfare depends on the trade-at rule, relative to the price impact of visible limit orders. A dark market with a large (but not too large) trade-at rule improves market quality and welfare; a small trade-at rule, however, impacts market quality and social welfare negatively. Price efficiency declines whenever investors use the dark market. For a trade-at rule at midpoint or larger, the liquidity provider does not post limit orders to the dark market. Chapter 3 is also a joint work with Katya Malinova. We study a financial market where investors trade a security for liquidity reasons. Investors pay a ‘take’ fee for trading with market orders, or a ‘make’ fee for limit orders—so-called ‘maker-taker pricing’. When all investors face the same fee schedule, only the total exchange fee per transaction has an economic impact, consistent with previous literature. However, when a subset of investors pay only the average exchange fee through a flat fee per trade---a common practice in the industry---maker-taker fees have an impact beyond the total fee. In comparison to a single-tier fee system, a ‘two-tiered’ fee system leads to a fall in trading volume and investor welfare; investors who pay maker-taker fees directly earn higher average profits than investors that pay an average flat fee per trade. Under this “two-tiered pricing”, increasing or decreasing the maker rebate can improve trading volume and welfare; however, only a reduction in the maker fee maximizes volume and welfare, and reduces differential profits to zero. | Ph.D. | financial market, innovation | 9, 10 |
| Brown, Kevin Antoine | Fisman, David N | Developing Individual and Population-level Models of Hospital-acquired Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) to Enable the Timely Identification of High-Risk Patients, to Facilitate Inter-Institution Comparisons of Incidence, and to Promote Quality Improvement | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2014-11 | Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a health-care associated disease that causes diarrhea and, in more severe cases, colitis and death. It is the most common of hospital-acquired infections in North America. In this thesis, I present 3 studies elucidating individual and population-level risk factors for CDI. In a meta-analysis of antibiotic effects on community-associated CDI risk, I found that Clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, and cephalosporins, monobactams and carbapenems (CMCs) had the largest effects on CDI risk, while macrolides, sulfonamides and trimethoprim and penicillins had lesser associations with CDI risk. I noted no effect of tetracyclines on CDI risk. A retrospective case-cohort analysis of 2,067 adults hospitalized at a tertiary hospital in Ontario, Canada, between June 2010 and May 2012 was conducted to assess the magnitude and duration of antibiotic effects on CDI risk. I found that risks due to antibiotic exposure begin two days after the initiation of antibiotics and are most elevated for a period of 5 days after antibiotic cessation. In this cohort study, exposure to symptomatic CDI cases was not associated with increased risk of infection. I carried out a time-series analysis on 16 years of monthly CDI incidence rate data in the United States to describe the relationship between CDI incidence and hospital pneumonia and influenza (P) prevalence at a hospital network level. Peak P prevalence preceded peak CDI incidence by 9 weeks and I found that surges in hospital P prevalence were associated with disproportionately large impacts on CDI incidence that lasted for 13 months. These findings suggest that control of CDI must involve a strengthening of antimicrobial stewardship initiatives in order to diminish inappropriate antibiotic exposures. Initiatives that would lessen the impacts of seasonal respiratory infections on hospital admissions, including influenza vaccination and programs to reduce pneumonia-associated hospitalizations, could also help stem the increasing incidence of CDI in the North American health care system. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Brown, LeAnn Christine | Nagy, Naomi | Phonetic Cues and the Perception of Gender and Sexual Orientation | Linguistics | 2015-03 | Phonetic variation is a well-established type of cue used in the construction and perception of social identities such as gender, concepts of masculinity and femininity, and sexual orientation. Less established is how cues indexed with inter-related identities are integrated or weighted relative to each other. Because the cues identifying gender and sexual orientation are potentially overlapping, (i.e., gay and lesbian speakers are often perceived as using cues indexed with the opposite gender), in this study, experimental methods are used to assess cue effects. Experimental cues used are fundamental frequency (f0), first and second vowel formants (Fn), and the center of gravity of the fricative /s/. These were chosen as all were significant in the perception of sex, gender and/or sexual orientation, or in terms of production by such groups in previous studies. In this study's experiments, three groups of participants (n=105) heard target stimuli consisting of /V/, /sV/ or /Vs/, created by combining altered and unaltered cues. Each participant heard a stimulus and chose a perceived gender and sexual orientation for that stimulus. Results indicate that the outcomes for the dependent variables of Perceived Gender, Men's Perceived Sexual Orientation (MPSO) and Women's Perceived Sexual Orientation (WPSO) result from the same cues but that cue integration strategies vary. The area of greatest overlap is for Perceived Gender and MPSO with F0 Up cues resulting in more women and gay men percepts, and FN Down cues resulting in more men and straight men percepts. For WPSO results the vocalic cues strongly affect each other, although F0 Up cues tend to result in more straight women percepts. These results suggest that listeners use experienced and stereotypic cues when determining gender and sexual orientation. The results also suggest that listeners use an androcentric template for all three dependent variables. Cue variants are not marked with specific indexical meanings such as "women" or "femininity", but are marked in terms of man-based norms. Crucially, cue integration involves both social markedness based on stereotypes and phonetic markedness based on cue ranges. Cue Integration Theory is proposed to account for the empirical results for all three dependent variables. | Ph.D. | gender, women | 5 |
| Brown, Sharon Leonie | Wane, Njoki | Mosaic Paths to New Knowledge: Conceptualizing Cultural Wealth from Women of Colour as They Experience the Process of becoming Doctoral Recipients | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2012-11 | Abstract The aim of this study is to identify the positive contributions women of colour (WOC) bring to higher education as they experience the process of becoming doctoral recipients. Their experiences are presented as a new epistemology—a theory of knowledge—as part of the larger area of cultural capital theory. The experiences of WOC in Canadian doctoral programs are conceptualized as ‘cultural wealth’ and new knowledge because evidence reveals that the intrinsic value of their contributions has evolved from unique cultural and historical resources. The discursive theoretical frameworks of Womanist theory, critical race theory (CRT) and cultural capital theory are utilized to guide the analysis of the findings. This study establishes the experiences of the participants as valuable and distinctive knowledge by emphasizing the intersectionality of race, class, gender, culture, and spirituality. The research suggests that the experiences of women of colour are informed by an inner wisdom woven from the mosaic, or uniquely diverse paths, which these women have taken toward earning their doctorate degree. The existing interpretation of cultural capital theory - originally established by Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) - is considered the only social marker of wealth in socio-economical and educational research. Although previous studies have challenged this dominant perspective, this current study presents a unique interpretation of cultural capital theory by expanding the notion of cultural wealth from a Canadian perspective. This study highlights the importance of the racial/cultural context that is highly visible in Canadian culture but seldom addressed in higher education research. In addition, the aim of my study is to establish the wealth of “Mosaic Paths” found among the cultural identity of WOC, as a new epistemology in Canadian higher education. Specifically, the journey toward achieving a doctoral degree is often over-generalized in higher education. This study will reveal the realistic paths that WOC must traverse in order to realize their goals. Finally, the findings from the data reveal six major sources of cultural wealth: 1) Mother’s Influence, 2) Age Capital, 3) Mentorship, 4) Survival Strategies, 5) Negotiating Academic Culture or Know-how, and 6) Spirituality. | PhD | equitable, women | 4, 5 |
| Browne, Dillon T. | Jenkins, Jennifer M | Social Disadvantage Gets Inside The Family: Exploring Biopsychosocial Family Processes in the Emergence of Developmental Health Inequalities | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2016-11 | Children raised in socially disadvantaged settings often exhibit poorer developmental health in a variety of domains, including socioemotional, medical and cognitive functioning. This relationship appears to operate in part via a cascade linking poverty and cumulative environmental adversity to early biological risk and interpersonal family process. Moreover, these mechanisms are suggested to function over-and-above the direct effects of material investments in childrenâ s healthy development and wellbeing. Despite this knowledge, there remains a need for longitudinal developmental research examining the nature in which environmental risk in early life impacts multiple and distinct intermediary mechanisms that are manifest within the proximal family environment. In order to address this limitation, the present dissertation provides three separate empirical studies outlining the nature in which social disadvantage impacts family process (in the form of interpersonal sensitivity), and early biological risk (in the form of birth weight). Data for the present dissertation came from the Kids, Families and Places Study, which is a population-based prospective birth cohort of newborn infants and their families from Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (N=501 families). The present dissertation demonstrates that social disadvantage (1) impacts cognitive functioning in a number of domains at the time of school entry via maternal sensitivity and material investments, (2) disrupts the receipt of cognitive sensitivity during family interactions across multiple dyads, particularly for younger siblings, and (3) simultaneously increases developmental risk for multiple siblings-per-family and tends to increase sibling differences in developmental experience. To conclude, implications for the study of developmental health and family science are discussed. | Ph.D. | poverty, socioeconomic | 1 |
| Bryant, Rachel | Sumner, Wayne||Walsh, Denis | Tragic Moral Conflict and Endangered Species Recovery | Philosophy | 2018-11 | Given the state of the art of conservation, and given the rapidity with which species are disappearing as the result of human economic activities, members of the societies that encourage and benefit from these activities, and that undertake the species recovery process, often face a terrible choice: either 1) intensively manage species populations and ecological communities by killing, harming, making vulnerable to harm, or controlling the most important aspects of the lives of many individual animals; or 2) allow entire species to go extinct. I call situations in which people face this kind of choice recovery predicaments. Such predicaments seem to be tragic moral conflicts, or situations in which whatever one does—even the right act that is right on the whole—will be seriously wrong. This dissertation explores whether working from within Kant’s deontology, Ross’s deontology, or utilitarianism excuses environmental ethics for neglecting the problem of tragic moral conflict, or for failing to recognize recovery predicaments as tragic moral conflicts. It asks three questions of each theory. Does it have what it takes to admit that the right act can be wrong in some way? If so, does it have what it takes to admit that the right act can be seriously wrong? And if it does, can it interpret recovery predicaments as situations in which whatever one does will be tragically wrong? The dissertation argues that, for each theory, the answer to the first two questions is yes. None of the theories excuses us for ignoring the problem of tragic moral conflict. For both Ross’s and Kant’s deontologies, the answer to the third question is also yes, but for utilitarianism, the answer is indeterminate. This means that from within utilitarianism, we cannot say whether a recovery predicament is a tragic moral conflict, but from within the other two theories we can say that it is. | Ph.D. | environment, conserv | 13, 14 |
| Bryce, Erin Kathryn | Tracy, Rogers | Six Feet under the Weather: The Short-Term Relationship between Synoptic Weather and Daily Mortality | Anthropology | 2014-11 | The fact that weather affects human health has been thoroughly documented. However, few studies have used longitudinal archival meteorological AND demographic information in their analyses, or addressed multiple research questions in a single location. This study investigates the effects of weather extremes, unseasonable weather, weather changes, and local winds on the rate of daily mortality in the British colony of Gibraltar. By addressing several key questions at once, the interactions between different components of the weather and their collective effects on the body can be examined, which accurately reflects the complexity of real-life conditions. Daily mortality and meteorological information was collected for the period 1859-1989. In total, 39,926 individual deaths over 44,246 days were analyzed. Daily weather was classified using the Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC). Weather change was defined by the Euclidean distance between sequential days' weather variables. Wind direction and wind speed were used to evaluate local winds. Oppressive dry tropical and moist tropical days in the summer were associated with higher mor-tality; moist polar conditions in the winter were associated with an increase in mortality for children under 5 and males over 65. Moist tropical days in the winter were associated with decreased mortality for the entire population but increased mortality for males and females over 65 and for males aged 5-65. Moist polar days in the summer were healthy for the entire population. Days with large and small weather changes were associated with an excess of mortality compared to days of intermediate weather change. Local winds were found to be positively associated with daily mortality, although the direction of the wind was not significant. Since humans face an elevated risk of mortality during days with large or small changes in the weather, public health interventions should target not only temperature extremes, but also take the variability of the weather into account. | Ph.D. | weather, health | 3, 13 |
| Buchan, Sarah | Kwong, Jeffrey C | Using Laboratory-Confirmed Outcomes to Study Pediatric Influenza and Influenza Vaccine Epidemiology in Ontario | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2018-06 | Annual epidemics of seasonal influenza continue to cause substantial morbidity in young children. Influenza is among several respiratory viruses that cause illness in children, in addition to a large burden on the healthcare system and society, but is the only one for which a vaccine is available. In this dissertation, I present three studies regarding the epidemiology of influenza in children under the age of five years using a novel approach of linking laboratory and health administrative data in Ontario. In a systematic review and meta-analysis of children presenting to healthcare who are tested for influenza, I found that 20% (95%CI 15%-25%) have laboratory-confirmed influenza, with variation across subgroups. I found that influenza represents a large overall burden of disease and a substantial proportion of healthcare encounters for respiratory illnesses. In a retrospective cohort study, I compared the characteristics, outcomes, and relative severity of illness of children who were hospitalized and tested for influenza A, influenza B, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and were positive for only a single virus. I found that in-hospital outcomes and post-discharge healthcare utilization in children with no identified comorbidities were similar by virus type, but post-discharge healthcare utilization was higher for those with influenza in those with underlying comorbidities. I observed similar severity of illness, based on in-hospital outcomes, and cost of hospitalization between viruses. In a test-negative study, I estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) against laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalizations in children aged 6-59 months for the 2010-11 to 2013-14 seasons. I found that overall, VE was 51% (95%CI 38%-61%) for any vaccination, with variation by vaccination status (full vs. partial), season, age group, and subtype. These results indicate that large numbers of pediatric hospitalizations resulting from influenza infection could be prevented by promoting seasonal influenza vaccination each year. Overall, these results contribute to our understanding of pediatric respiratory viruses in Ontario, with each individual chapter adding to our knowledge regarding burden, severity, and prevention of influenza infection. These results can inform families, clinicians, public health practitioners, and policy makers in order to help reduce the impact of annual influenza infection in young children. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Buick, Catriona Jane | Metcalfe, Kelly | Understanding the Role of Oncogenic Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Status on Adherence Behaviors Among Women with Abnormal Cervical Cytology | Nursing Science | 2017-11 | The discovery of oncogenic Human Papillomavirus (HPV) as the precursor to cervical cancer is a significant advancement in public health. However, the use of HPV testing has increased the complexity of cervical screening, as it is associated with elevated psychosocial burden and perceived risk of cancer in some women. What remains to be seen is if knowledge of oneâ s oncogenic HPV status impacts on adherence to follow-up recommendations for cervical screening abnormalities, a modifiable health behavior that is strongly associated with the primary prevention of cervical cancer. Insomuch as adherence rates remain low in women with cervical screening abnormalities, it is crucial that we understand which factors impact on adherence to follow-up recommendations across a range of clinical manifestations. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to: 1) to identify if clinical, demographic or psychosocial factors predict non-adherence with recommended follow-up after initial consultation; 2) to identify clinical, demographic and psychosocial variables associated with HPV related burden and; 3) to describe the clinical and demographic characteristics of participants according to pre-post smoking and HPV vaccine immunization patterns. This study examined 186 women referred to a large Toronto colposcopy clinic. The HPV Status Adherence Conceptual Framework was used to guide survey development and to contextualize results. The findings suggest that non-adherence to colposcopy follow-up exists and is problematic. Specifically, younger women (OR=0.73, p | Ph.D. | women | 3 |
| Bullen, Mary Doreen | Eichler, Margrit | Transitioning To High School: Parent Involvement And School Choice | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2012-06 | Abstract The disquiet around parent-school relationships is the focus of this study. During transitioning to high school, the boundaries around this relationship changes. Few studies have addressed these changes, particularly from parents’ perspectives. It is parents’ voices which are central to this study. This dissertation uses the standpoint of parents, which is often absent or silent in educational literature and research. Within a critical and constructivist paradigm, and influenced by Institutional Ethnography, two elementary schools (divergent in race, social class, ethnicity and immigrant status) and one high school are the sites for interviews with 14 parents and 13 educators. 11 parents were re-interviewed after their children entered high school. Four questions were addresses: How has parent involvement come to be understood? How is the parent-school relationship experienced by parents and educators? How and why are decisions made around the transition and school choice process? Do parents’ perceptions align/vary from those of educators? Based on historically constructed notions and assumptions, parent involvement is usually understood as a visible and public demonstration of appropriate and caring parenting ignoring interactions outside of the public’s gaze. Illustrated through Parent Council membership, parent involvement is gendered, classed, culturally related and race, ethnic and immigrant status specific. Some parents had more social, cultural, economic and emotional capital to bring to the transition process, while others were marginalized and had to rely on/trust the education system. School and Board policies and procedures were examined and their varied affects on parents’ experiences and choices analysed. Educators assisted in disseminating assumptions around parent-school relationships and contributed to inequitable parent knowledge, partially as a result of too little training. By examining social, economic and cultural positioning of parents within local school communities, positive parent-school relationships can be nurtured, which political pundits and educationalists have failed to accomplish. During transitioning, organization and social discontinuities contributed to parent and school disconnects and constructed borderlands in the parent-child-school relationship. This study evidenced the fragility of the parent-school relationship, especially during this vulnerable time for parents and thus, reflective questions are presented in hope of initiating a crucial conversation in local school communities. | EDD | equitable | 4 |
| Burdyny, Thomas | Sinton, David | System-based Approaches for the Enhancement of Catalytic CO2 Reduction Reactions | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2017-11 | This thesis focusses on the importance of system design, specifically the engineering of gas, liquid and solid catalyst interactions, in enhancing catalytic CO2 reduction processes. The most impactful contributions of this thesis are: the enhancement of CO2 production rates via morphology-induced mass transport (Chapter 3); the manipulation of local reaction environments to increase electrochemical CO2-to-ethylene production in an H-cell configuration (Chapter 4); the design of an abrupt reaction interface adjacent to a gas-liquid interface for high current and selective ethylene production in an alkaline media (Chapter 5); and the creation of a scalable multi-phase photocatalytic reactor (Chapter 6). While material science and chemistry are essential in the creation and functionality of CO2 reduction catalysts, the overall system surrounding the solid catalyst plays a similar influential role in determining the overall efficiency, product distribution and production rate. By understanding the complex interactions between a solid catalyst, liquid electrolyte and gas reagents/products, the underlying influences of system engineering on catalyst performance can be extracted and improved. Using this approach catalyst surface morphology is revealed to increase limiting current densities multifold by enhancing the natural mass transport effects of departing CO2 reduction products. The pH and CO2 gradients formed at the catalystâ s surface during the reaction similarly influence product selectivity, most notably the ratio between hydrogen, methane and ethylene using copper-based catalysts. Equipped with this understanding, tuning catalyst morphology under differing buffering capacities allowed for traditionally coupled CO2 limitations and electrode pH to become partially decoupled; ethylene production under ambient conditions then improved significantly as compared to a catalytic system void of such considerations. Expanding on this knowledge CO2 reduction catalysts were designed to operate in a highly alkaline environment where the reaction onset potential for ethylene formation was found to be reduced to unparalleled levels. The system design, which manipulated a sub-100 nm diffusion interface, similarly led to half-cell power conversion efficiencies higher than previous efforts at significantly improved production rates. | Ph.D. | cities, production, environment | 11, 12, 13 |
| Burgess, Allison H. F. | Dehli, Kari | It's Not A Parade, It's A March!: Subjectivities, Spectatorship, and Contested Spaces of the Toronto Dyke March | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2011-11 | In this thesis I address the following questions: (1) How do dykes take up space in public in contemporary cities? (2) How does the ‘marching dyke’ emerge as a subject and what kind of subject is it? (3) How, in turn, do marching dykes affect space? In order to examine these questions I focus on the Toronto Dyke March to ask how it emerged in this particular time and place. The answer to each of these questions is paradoxical. I argue that the Dyke March is a complex, complicated and contradictory site of politics, protest and identity. Investigating ‘marching dykes’ reveals how the subject of the Dyke March is imagined in multiple and conflicting ways. The Toronto Dyke March is an event which brings together thousands of queer women annually who march together in the streets of Toronto on the Saturday afternoon of Pride weekend. My research examines how the March emerged out of a history of activism and organizing and considers how the March has been made meaningful for queer women’s communities, identities, histories and spaces. My analysis draws together queer and feminist poststructuralism, cultural geography literature on sexuality and space, and the history of sexuality in Canada. I combine a Foucaultian genealogy with visual ethnography, interviews and archival research. I argue that the Dyke March is an event which is intentionally meaningful in its claims to particular spaces and subjectivities. This research draws connections across various bodies of scholarship and offers an interdisciplinary contribution to the literature, contributing to discussions of queer women’s visibility and representation. Although my analysis is focused on Toronto as a particular site, it offers insight into broader queer women’s activist organizing efforts and queer activism in Canada. | PhD | queer | 5 |
| Burke, Jason Robert | Farish, Matthew ||Goonewardena, Kanishka | In the Defence of Cities: A History of Security Planning in Canada | Planning | 2012-11 | Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, urban spaces have become increasingly subject to various methods of surveillance and control, especially by physical means. Yet, while 9/11 acted as a catalyst for rapid increases in security measures, the process of securitization has a much longer history. Accordingly, this research looks at how security has been planned and how this has changed over the last four decades in the context of Canada. The dissertation focuses on three Canadian case studies to explore the evolution of security planning: the October Crisis with an emphasis on Montreal (1970), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vancouver (1997), and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Each case represents a significant moment in Canadian security planning and provides insight into the shifting structure of Canada’s security apparatus. Furthermore, these cases offer a lens into the historical transformations of the Canadian ‘security state’. While the issues and actions associated with these cases cut across local, national, and international scales, the impacts of security measures in each were mostly local and urban. To show how Canadian urban spaces have been transformed and controlled by an evolving security framework, I argue that security planning must be understood as a form of urban planning, although one that remains to be properly acknowledged by the profession or even the academic discipline of planning. Given the democratic claims of liberal planning and its professed concern for the good city, it is therefore significant that the security measures studied in these case studies were implemented without democratic scrutiny but with significant consequences for urban experience. This dissertation tells a story of security planning in Canada, demonstrating how its practices have changed over time in ways that are at odds with liberal political values cherished by mainstream planning. | PhD | urban | 11 |
| Burley, Jessica Lynn | Strange, William | The Socio-Economics of Neighbourhoods and Cities: Papers in Urban Economics | Economics | 2017-11 | This thesis explores the socio-economics of neighbourhoods and cities and the role that changes to labour market opportunities and access to amenities play in determining housing demand and demographic shifts. Many cities are experiencing a spatial inversion in terms of neighbourhood demographics -- city centers are becoming both wealthier and more expensive while peripheral, suburban neighbourhoods are becoming both poorer and less expensive. In a dynamic context, I consider the social and economic processes that contribute to neighbourhood change. Chapter 1 contributes to the literature on neighbourhood change by providing a comprehensive characterization of the dynamics of New York City neighbourhoods. Using a structural breakpoint analysis I provide evidence of which neighbourhoods have changed, when they changed, and the magnitude of the change. I show a clear spatial and temporal pattern to neighbourhood change and I present several results: price increases are larger than price decreases; increases in housing demand precede increases in price growth; and downtown neighbourhoods are increasingly wealthier and a greater fraction white. Chapter 2 explores the extent to which changing labour market characteristics contribute to the patterns of neighbourhood change. I construct a spatial-Bartik instrumental variable as an exogenous measure of neighbourhood labour demand, which is then used to generate predicted income growth rates and house price growth rates. I find that in New York City 21% of the variation in income growth rates and 41% of the variation in house price growth rates between 1990 and 2010 can be explained by exogenous labour demand shocks. Chapter 3 focuses on the influence of the built environment on social behaviours. I find a strong and positive cross-sectional relationship between the built environment and social interactions. Once I address the endogenous decision of where to live, the significant effects found in the cross-section disappear. This implies that there is sorting of relatively social individuals into more walkable neighbourhoods. I find some evidence that this sorting is correlated with life-cycle changes that may affect both residential decisions and social relationships. | Ph.D. | labour, cities, urban | 8, 11 |
| Burshell, Jessica Lynn | Bowers, Anne||Mitchell, William | Essays on organizations in market emergence processes | Management | 2017-11 | Economic growth is associated with market dynamics based on new products and ideas. However, products that do not fit into the established market structure face risks, including being overlooked, undervalued, and failing. To overcome those risks, organizations can try to influence emergence of new market structures with which to be associated. My dissertation draws on theories related to organizational strategy, institutions, market categories, and social movements to examine how organizations engage in processes of market emergence. My dissertation deploys a social constructionist perspective wherein it is through social interactions and socio-cognitive processes that market structures emerge. Using this lens, I examine choices by organizations and external reactions to them by focusing on environments in which interactions are likely. The first study examines the strategic choice to claim a label by members of an emerging market category. We introduce the concept of proximate social space to examine the responsiveness of organizations to their external environment defined by either geography or market segment. In the context of a niche nonprofit practice in the U.S., we find that organizations choose to be early claimants of a label relative to their local geographic region, even as they exhibit awareness of their peers within their market segment. The second study examines the activities social movement organizations can use to increase awareness and market demand for certified products. Research on social movements has identified product certifications as a means for influencing the market, however certifications require awareness to function as intended. In a series of chapters using the context of LEED certification for environmentally-friendly buildings, I examine the strategies that social movement organizations can use to influence awareness of their certification, and the relationship between awareness and demand for that certification in the local geographic regions where interactions occur. I conclude by identifying both theoretical and practical implications based on the insights in each of the chapters. | Ph.D. | economic growth, industr | 8, 9 |
| Burtnyk, Mathieu | Bronskill, Michael | Conformal Heating of the Prostate for the Treatment of Localized Cancer using MRI-guided Transurethral Ultrasound | Medical Biophysics | 2011-06 | Prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer and the third-leading cause of cancer-related death among men in the developed world, with the number of cases expected to double within the next 15 years. Conventional therapies offer good control of local disease but are associated with high complication rates reducing long-term health-related quality-of-life significantly. MRI-guided transurethral ultrasound therapy has emerged as an attractive, minimally-invasive alternative for the treatment of localized prostate cancer, where the entire gland is heated to temperatures sufficient to cause irreversible thermal coagulation. A device inserted in the urethra uses multiple ultrasound transducers to produce directional heating patterns directly in the prostate. Adjusting the ultrasound power, frequency and device rotation rate enables high spatial control of the thermal lesion. MRI provides information essential to the accurate targeting of the prostate; anatomical images for device positioning and treatment planning, and quantitative temperature measurements within the prostate to compensate for dynamic tissue changes, using feedback control. This thesis develops a complete treatment delivery strategy for producing conformal regions of thermal coagulation shaped to whole-gland prostate volumes, while limiting the thermal impact to the surrounding important anatomy. First, acoustic and thermal simulations incorporating a novel temperature feedback controller were used to model and shape regions of coagulation to human prostate geometries with a high degree of accuracy. Second, treatment delivery strategies were developed and simulated to reduce thermal injury to the surrounding anatomy, below the threshold for sustained damage. Third, experiments in tissue-mimicking gel phantoms confirmed the predictive accuracy of the simulations and the feasibility of producing conformal volumes of coagulation using transurethral ultrasound devices and MRI-temperature feedback. This work forms the basis of clinical treatment delivery methods and supports the use of the simulations as a planning tool to enhance the inherent compromise between safety and efficacy on a patient-specific basis. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Burton, Wendy Jackson | Sorensen, Andre | From Greenspace to Greenbelt: The Role of Civil Society in Landscape Protection in the Toronto Region | Geography | 2016-11 | Greenspace has been increasingly identified as an important element of environmental, social and economic health, yet proponents of greenspace protection from within civil society often find themselves with limited resources in political battles with powerful pro-growth coalitions. This was the case with the three citizen-led campaigns that managed to protect progressively larger landscapes in the Toronto region, culminating with the creation of a 1.8-million-acre greenbelt. How did they do this? This study uses qualitative methods and draws on institutionalism, participation theory, and social capital approaches to examine the evolution of environmental civil society groups and how they learned to exploit governance processes to persuade state actors to break with the status quo. The study looks at how cultural understandings, historical legacies, legal institutions, planning rules and public preferences shaped the landscape of the Toronto region. The research finds that citizen environmentalists were able to use their social capital resources as civil society groups to adapt governance structures – particularly public participation processes – to build a durable constituency for greenspace protection with payoffs for political actors. Particularly influential were: historical legacies of deploying natural solutions to prevent natural disasters, public participation exercises that were open to manipulation, bridging social capital that helped build large coalitions, and bonding social capital that helped coalition members unite and carry out strategies that included keeping the vision alive for decades as election cycles came and went, and, finally, protecting new state partners from criticism. However, state actors under the influence of the still-strong growth coalition remain reluctant stewards of the environment and have chosen implementation strategies that could undermine greenspace protection over time. The study adopts an inclusive definition of civil society and finds that a new typology based on two measures of social capital – inclusiveness and (private vs. public) interests – shows that certain groups are more useful in coalitions campaigning to expand public goods. The study also finds that difficulties in developing the social capital needed to develop working relationships in short-term stakeholder groups were overcome by resorting to selective membership and secret meetings. | Ph.D. | governance, environment, urban | 11, 13, 16 |
| Buse, Christopher G. | Poland, Blake | Analyzing an Emerging Field of Public Health Practice in Ontario, Canada: The Case of Climate Change Adaptation | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2015-11 | This dissertation uses the case of public health adaptation to climate change in Ontario, Canada to develop an understanding of how new fields of public health practice emerge, and how practices become legitimated by practitioners. Since climate change became an identified public health issue by way of the Ontario Public Health Standards, 2008 (OPHS), and given that health equity is a normative dimension of practice and climate change holds the potential to exacerbate existing health inequalities, this work makes three primary contributions. First, I utilize Bourdieu’s theory of practice to describe how social change occurs within the professional field of public health. Second, I share practitioner interpretations of the OPHS to develop an understanding of how policy on climate change adaptation is translated into practice. Third, I highlight the role of health equity in climate change work, as practiced by Ontario public health practitioners. The dissertation draws on data from a web-scan of the thirty-six Ontario public health unit web pages and twenty in-depth interviews with public health practitioners from twenty health units. By identifying specific practices and interpretations of public health policy related to climate change, I show how specific practices are imbued with discursive meaning that shape how public health action on climate change is framed and understood as ‘legitimate’. Findings illustrate that climate change is very much an emerging field of practice, with a variety of approaches taken by practitioners including inaction, the repackaging of existing environmental health activities, and championing innovative practices. I demonstrate how practitioners selectively utilize policy to both enable and constrain public health action on climate change, and to document how health equity is employed as a discursive strategy by the champions of this work to try and legitimate climate change adaptation as a unique sub-field of public health practice. | Ph.D. | environment, climate, health | 3, 13 |
| Butler, Colleen Dorelle | Townsend, David | Queering the Classics: Gender, Genre, and Reception in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim | Medieval Studies | 2016-11 | This thesis examines how the worldâ s first female dramatist, the tenth-century canoness Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, challenged pedagogical interpretations of gender in her imitations of Roman literature. The dissertation finds that while Hrotsvit imitated the content and form of Ovid, Terence, and Virgil, she denaturalized the binary conceptions of gender promulgated in their works by inverting the specific markers of gender identified in pedagogical texts associated with them and by linking those behavioural markers to imbalances of social power rather than to biology. Studies of the sex/gender system in the early medieval period have tended to focus on medical discourses which attribute gendered behaviour to biology. My doctoral research uses untapped primary sources to prove that gender was not invariably thought to be tied to biology in the medieval cultural imaginary. The commentaries, glosses, and other pedagogical texts on classical literature used in medieval classrooms presented readers with a concrete set of ideas about gender, including highly specific linguistic and behavioural expectations. While scholars have increasingly begun to analyze commentaries on classical literature for insights into medieval gender norms, the majority of this work has focused on the dissemination of ideas about masculinity in male homosocial schools during the twelfth century and beyond. My research contributes to this conversation by asking how early medieval female readers responded to the educational discourses on gender which they encountered in the female-led classrooms of women's religious institutions. The thesis is also innovative in its proposal that Hrotsvitâ s book of saintsâ legends was written in imitation of Ovid. Overall, the dissertation revises current understandings of the sex/gender system in the Ottonian period, demonstrating that ideas which resemble the social construction of gender were circulating centuries earlier than previously thought. | Ph.D. | gender | 5 |
| Byrne, Brendan | Strong, Kimberly||Jones, Dylan B A | Monitoring the carbon cycle: Evaluation of terrestrial biosphere models and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions with atmospheric observations | Physics | 2018-11 | Reliable projections of climate change will require terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) that produce robust projections of changes in the exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere. In this thesis, atmospheric CO2 observations are used to evaluate TBMs. First, the sensitivity of several observing systems to surface fluxes of CO2 is characterized. This analysis identifies the spatiotemporal scales over which atmospheric CO2 observations provide significant constraints on net ecosystem exchange (NEE) fluxes. Second, constraints from atmospheric CO2 and solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) observations are combined to evaluate the seasonality of NEE, gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) fluxes over the northern mid-latitudes for a set of TBMs. It is shown that model-based seasonal cycles of Re exhibit systematic differences from optimized Re constrained by atmospheric CO2 and SIF measurements, with the models overestimating Re during June-July and underestimating Re during the fall. Further analysis suggests that the differences could be due to seasonal variations in the carbon use efficiency and to seasonal variations in the leaf litter and fine root carbon pool. Finally, the ability of TBMs to simulate interannual variability (IAV) in NEE is evaluated. IAV in NEE produced by a set of TBMs and CO2 flux inversions is compared to proxies of IAV in the carbon cycle, including temperature anomalies, SIF anomalies, and the Palmer drought index. It is shown that CO2 flux inversions that assimilate observations from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) out-perform most TBMs in recovering NEE anomalies driven by climate anomalies, suggesting that GOSAT CO2 flux inversions can be used to evaluate NEE anomalies produced by TBMs on large scales. This thesis also describes the installation of an open-path Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (OP-FTIR) system in downtown Toronto. This system provides continuous observations of CO2, CO, CH4 and N2O, which, in combination with other observing stations, will provide valuable top-down constraints on GHG emissions from Toronto. An initial evaluation of this instrument is performed and comparisons of the observed gases with meteorological observations and CO2, CO, and CH4 measurements at a nearby site are presented. | Ph.D. | solar, climate, greenhouse gas | 7, 13 |
| Cadchumsang, Jaggapan | Levin, Michael D. | People at the Rim: A Study of Tai Ethnicity and Nationalism in a Thai Border Village | Anthropology | 2011-11 | Based on ethnographic research in Ruam Chai, a large and remote village in northern Thailand, this dissertation seeks to examine the emergence of ethnic identity and nationalistic consciousness of the Tai people within the context of Thai nation-building, state development, and the history of the area in the 20th century. The Tai—generally known as the Shan—are the predominant residents of this multi-ethnic frontier community, once occupied by the notorious opium warlord, Khun Sa, prior to absolute control and administration by the Thai state in 1982. These people migrated from various areas of Myanmar’s Shan State over different periods of time, for a variety of reasons. Due to their illegal immigration, the Thai state classifies them into different non-citizenship statuses according to their migration background as well as survey and registration periods. As a result of recent revisions of the Thai Nationality Act, the documented Thailand-born offspring of these displaced Tai, whose parents’ statuses fall into certain non-Thai categories, meet the nominal requirements for becoming naturalised. Within the theoretical framework of constructivist approach and the notion of ethnic dynamism and nationalistic sentiments as a cultural practice in borderlands, this dissertation suggests the investigation of the Tai ethno-nationalism through three interconnected levels of analysis: village or community, national, and transborder. On the village level, while the Tai acknowledge their ethnic diversity and have a logical, conventional system of identification among themselves; they maintain ethnic boundaries amid interactions with village members of other ethnic origins, and (re)construct identities in response to both internal and external forces. On the national level, a nation-building process has induced a stronger sense of “being Thai” to both Thailand-born Tai children and pre-existing generations of Tai. This process emphasises ethnic homogeneity—through the employment of the Thainess concept—and exclusion of the Non-Thai from the Thai, where categorically ineligible Tai are driven to embrace outlawed conduct to secure Thai citizenship. On the transborder level, movements back and forth as well as relationships across various international borders have played a vital role in constructing Tai identity and imagining the nation of the Tai people, both in Ruam Chai and beyond. | PhD | institution | 16 |
| Cahuas, Madelaine Cristina | Wakefield, Sarah | Estamos Aquí, We Are Here: Latinx Struggles for Social Justice in the Greater Toronto Area | Geography | 2018-11 | The Latin American or Latinx population is one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in Canada. Yet, there is a persistent lack of spaces and opportunities for Latinx people to gather, build community and mobilize politically in one of the most diverse urban centres in Canada, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). At the same time, Latinx people have worked against this invisibility by carving out spaces in the city through the non-profit sector, where they have established numerous organizations, programs, networks and grassroots collectives. It is well documented how neoliberalization has negatively impacted the non-profit sector by coopting community agendas and suppressing social justice activism, and these effects have also been seen in the Latin American-serving non-profit sector. What is not well understood is how Latinx women and non-binary people negotiate and resist not only neoliberalization, but multiple forces of oppression, like heterosexism, racism and settler colonialism, that are interconnected and embedded within the non-profit sector and migrant political organizing. The objectives guiding this dissertation aim to explore how Latinx women and non-binary people serving as community workers or (LCWs) contend with, and challenge these intersecting systems and geographies of domination, within and beyond the GTA’s non-profit sector. These objectives are addressed using Chicana Latina Feminist Epistemologies, testimonio methodology, and multiple qualitative methods including 37 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, a workshop, participant observation and grey literature analysis. The findings reveal that LCWs, while constrained by white neoliberal and hetero-patriarchal non-profit structures and local political systems, they engage in innovative socio-spatial practices that transform urban spaces and advance social justice in the GTA. Furthermore, the findings of this dissertation underscore the spatiality of Latinx political life, and demonstrate how Latinx people dynamically create alternative geographies that are anchored in principles of reciprocity, relationality and a deep commitment to radical, decolonial and feminist politics. La población latinoamericana o latinx es uno de los grupos étnicos que esta creciendo más rápido en Canadá. Sin embargo, persiste la falta de espacios y oportunidades para que personas latinx forman una comunidad y se movilizan políticamente en uno de los centros urbanos más diversos de Canadá, la Área Metropolitana de Toronto. Al mismo tiempo, personas latinx han trabajado contra esta invisibilidad creando espacios en la ciudad a través del sector sin fines de lucro, donde han establecido varias organizaciones, programas, redes y colectivos activistas. Está bien documentado cómo la neoliberalización ha tenido un impacto negativo en el sector sin fines de lucro cooptando las agendas de comunidades y reprimiendo el activismo de la justicia social. Lo que no se entiende bien es cómo las mujeres latinas y personas de género no binario latinx resisten no solo la neoliberalización, pero múltiples fuerzas de opresión, como el heterosexismo, el racismo y el colonialismo, que son interconectadas e integradas en el sector sin fines de lucro. Esta tesis explora cómo las mujeres latinas y personas de género no binario latinx que son trabajadoras comunitarias desafían estos sistemas. Este objetivo se aborda utilizando epistemologías Chicanas, Latinas feministas, metodología testimonial y múltiples métodos cualitativos que incluyen 37 entrevistas, un taller y observación participante. Los resultados revelan que las trabajadoras, aunque están limitadas por estructuras de opresión y sistemas políticos locales neoliberales, hetero-patriarcales y racistas, se involucran en prácticas innovadoras que transforman el espacio urbano y promueven la justicia social. Las conclusiones de esta tesis alumbra las geografías de comunidades latinx y demuestran cómo personas latinx crean dinámicamente alternativas basadas en principios de reciprocidad, relacionalidad y un profundo compromiso con la política radical, decolonial y feminista. | Ph.D. | women, worker, urban, justice | 5, 8, 11, 16 |
| Cairns, Kate | Dehli, Kari | Mapping Futures, Making Selves: Subjectivity, Schooling and Rural Youth | Sociology and Equity Studies in Education | 2011-11 | This dissertation explores how rural young people imagine their futures in neo-liberal times. The analysis is based upon three months of ethnographic research with grade 7/8 students in ‘Fieldsville,’ a predominantly white and working-class rural community in Southeastern Ontario. I examine students' participation in a widely-used career-education program called The Real Game, in which they are encouraged to become entrepreneurial subjects capable of crafting productive futures in an uncertain world. My study asks: How do these young people produce and perform their imagined future selves, and what does this suggest about the opportunities and constraints that shape their current identities? Integrating insights from feminist poststructural theory and cultural geography, the project extends and challenges studies of the neo-liberal subject by integrating an analysis of place. The thesis builds upon, and contributes to, critical scholarship theorizing young lives as socially, spatially and temporally situated by exploring processes of location within subjectivity formation. Integrating classroom and playground observations with focus groups and interviews, the analysis reveals that young people draw upon diverse discourses in order to envision the person they hope to become. In addition to the subject positions on offer in The Real Game, popular culture provides a key resource in practices of self-making, as students invest in middle-class ideals of the “good life,” and distinguish their own rural location from racialized mappings of urban and global others. Although Fieldsville students are deeply invested in their rural community, tensions emerge where local attachments meet dominant narratives of mobility that encourage them to locate their futures elsewhere. These place-based tensions present particular challenges for girls, who must negotiate the gendered dynamics of rural social space alongside popular discourses of “girl power” that proffer unlimited possibilities for today's young women. Teasing apart the intersections of gender, race, class and space within students' narratives, I argue that studies of neo-liberal subjectivity must examine how dominant discourses are negotiated from particular social and geographical locations. Methodologically, the analysis demonstrates how school-based ethnography can shed light on broader socio-historical processes as they are lived in specific geographical and cultural spaces. | PhD | rural, urban, gender | 5, 11 |
| Callaghan, Mike | Lee, Richard B||Sellen, Daniel W | Antiretroviral Therapy in Walvis Bay, Namibia | Anthropology | 2015-11 | Highly Active Antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is a successful means of treating infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Namibia was among the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve universal access to HAART for HIV-positive citizens through the public sector. In this thesis, I explore treatment outcomes in Walvis Bay, a busy port city at Namibia’s coast. I find that gender is the most important factor shaping HAART, with women reporting for testing and treatment in greater numbers than men, sooner in the course of their illness, and enjoying lower mortality after treatment initiation. There are no compelling biological explanations for this distribution; I postulate a series of socio-cultural and political-ecological factors driving outcomes in Walvis Bay. In particular, changing gender roles and different points of entry into care are important at the individual level. I describe a ‘toxic masculinity’ that, however fragile, actively interferes with testing, treatment, and health-seeking behavior. Female identity, conversely, emerges as altogether more stable and more suited to the clinical and social demands of HAART. More broadly, actions are shaped by large-scale processes of urbanization and globalization, and especially the effects these have on labour, subsistence, and culture change. I conclude by suggesting modifications to the rollout program that may help to distribute the benefits of HAART more equitably through the treatment population. This research has important implications for other countries in sub-Saharan Africa as they gradually move toward universal access to HAART. More generally, it may presage future challenges of globalization and infectious disease. | Ph.D. | health, gender | 3, 5 |
| Callaghan, Tonya | Sykes, Heather | Holy Homophobia: Doctrinal Disciplining of Non-heterosexuals in Canadian Catholic Schools | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2012-06 | In 2012 clashes between Catholic canonical law and Canadian common law regarding sexual minorities continue to be played out in Canadian Catholic schools. Although Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures same-sex equality in Canada, this study shows that some teachers in Alberta Catholic schools are fired for contravening Catholic doctrine about non-heterosexuality, while Ontario students’ requests to establish Gay/Straight Alliances are denied. This study seeks to uncover the causes and effects of the long-standing disconnect between Canadian Catholic schools and the Charter by comparing the treatment of and attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (lgbtq) teachers and students in publicly-funded Catholic school systems in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario. I employ a multi-method qualitative research framework involving: 1) semi-structured interviews with 20 participants (7 current and former teachers and 13 former students), 18 of which are re-presented as condensed narratives; 2) media accounts that illustrate the Catholic schools’ homophobic environment; and 3) two key Alberta and Ontario Catholic policy and curriculum documents. The central question driving this study is: How does power operate in Canadian Catholic schools? Is it exercised from the top down solely, or are there instances of power rising up from the bottom as well? To answer this question, I draw upon the critical theories of Gramsci (1971), Althusser (1970/2008), Foucault (1975/1995), and Giroux (2001) in order to explain the phenomenon of “holy homophobia” in Canadian Catholic schools. The chief finding of this study is that contradictory Catholic doctrine on the topic of non-heterosexuality is directing school policy and practice regarding the management of sexual minority groups in Alberta and Ontario Catholic schools, positioning these schools as potential hotbeds for homophobia. Hopefully, this thesis can one day serve as a resource for anti-homophobia education researchers and practitioners, school administrators, educators and students who are interested in eliminating religiously-inspired homophobia in school settings. | PhD | gender, queer, equality, rights | 5, 16 |
| Calvasina, Paola Gondim | Carles, Muntaner | Examining the Oral Health, Access to Dental Care and Transnational Dental Care Utilization of Adult Immigrants: Analysis of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (2001-2005) | Dentistry | 2014-11 | Immigrants form a significant and growing proportion of Canadian society. Around 250,000 immigrants are admitted into the country each year. Recent immigrants to Canada are, on average, healthier that the general Canadian population, in a phenomenon called "the healthy immigrant effect". However, over the years after immigration, their health declines. Very little is known about the oral health of adult immigrants to Canada, and there is no evidence that "the healthy immigrant effect" applies to oral health. Little and inconsistent evidence is also found regarding immigrants' access to dental care and dental care utilization. A secondary data analysis was conducted on the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC 2001-2005). Using a generalized estimating equation (GEE) approach, we examined socio-demographic and economic factors associated with changes in self-reported dental problems among a sample of adult immigrants to Canada over a four-year period. Using logistic regression, we also examined predictors of barriers to accessing dental care (i.e., unmet dental care needs) and transnational dental care utilization over a three point five year. Results revealed that immigrants were more likely to report dental problems than Canadians over the period of observation (OR=2.77; 95% CI: 2.55-3.02). Lack of dental insurance predicted immigrants' unmet dental care needs (OR=2.63; 95% CI: 2.05-3.37) and transnational dental care utilization (OR=2.05; 95% CI:1.55-2.70) post-migration. Immigrant women were also more likely to report dental problems, and to use transnational dental care services over time. In conclusion, this study identified an increased likelihood of reporting dental problems over time, suggesting that the healthy immigrant effect applies to oral health. Immigrants lacking dental insurance were more likely to face barriers to accessing dental care and to use transnational dental care strategies to overcome those barriers. Shortcomings in immigration policies and the features of the Canadian dental care system, which tend to exclude most socially marginalized groups, may contribute to immigrants' oral health deterioration. Importantly, immigrant women who over time were more likely to report dental problems should be at the forefront of public policies aiming to improve the oral health ofimmigrants. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Cameron, Paula | Cole, Ardra | Seamfulness: Nova Scotian Women Witness Depression through Zines | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2012-11 | Seamfulness is a narrative-based and arts-informed inquiry into young women's "depression" as pedagogy. Unfolding in rural Nova Scotia, this research is rooted in my experience of depression as the most transformative event in my life story. While memoirists tell me I am not alone, there is currently a lack of research on personal understandings of depression, particularly for young adult women. Through storytelling sessions and self-publishing workshops, I explored four young Nova Scotian women's depression as a productive site for growth. Participants include four young women, including myself, who experienced depression in their early 20s, and have not had a major depressive episode for at least three years. Aged 29 to 40, we claim Métis, Scottish, Acadian, and British ancestries, and were raised and lived in rural Nova Scotian communities during this time. At the seams of adult education, disability studies, and art, I ask: How do young women narrate experiences of "depression" as education? How do handmade, self-published booklets (or “zines”) allow for exploring this topic as embodied, emotional and critical transformative learning? To address these questions, I employ arts-informed strategies and feminist, adult education, mental health, and disability studies literatures to investigate the critical and transformative learning accomplished by young women who experience depression. Through a feminist poststructuralist lens and using qualitative and arts-informed methods, I situate depression as valuable learning, labour, and gift on behalf of the societies and communities in which women live. I argue that just as zines are powerful forms for third space pedagogy, depression itself is a third space subjectivity that gives rise to the "disorienting dilemma" at the heart of transformative learning. I close with "Loose Ends," an exploration of depression as an unanswered question. This thesis engages visual and verbal strategies to disrupt epistemic and aesethetic conventions for academic texts. By foregrounding participant zines and stories, I privilege participant voices as the basis for framing their experience, rather than as material to reinforce or contest academic theories. | PhD | health, women | 3, 5 |
| Campbell, Melissa Colleen | Barton, Bruce | "Acts of Resistance": Reclaiming Native Womanhood in Canadian Aboriginal Theatre. | Drama | 2016-06 | This study investigates the representation of Aboriginal womanhood in Aboriginal women’s theatre in Canada. Using five core case studies to explore Indigenous women’s self-representation, I demonstrate how Native theatre engages in acts of resistance that promote the decolonization of Aboriginal womanhood. Drawing on concepts of Aboriginal storytelling, I attempt to weave the connections between the personal story and the collective history to demonstrate how these plays use theatrical presence to rebuke historical and contemporary absences of Native women. Each play does this by taking aim at political policies, stereotypes in popular culture, and sexual violence, which all sustain negative constructions of Native womanhood. Chapter one establishes the context(s) in which these plays exist and explores a history of legislation and policies that contributes to the negative representations of Aboriginal women. Chapters two and three demonstrate how Native women's theatre confronts stereotypes of Aboriginality and deconstructs them as a form of personal and collective healing. Chapter two explores how culture jamming and humour are used to disrupt the re-circulation of stereotypes in order to challenge the cultural currency stereotypes maintain in film, television, and other medias. In chapter three I explore the connection between the stereotypes and sexualized violence. I identify strategies used to represent violence, specifically around concepts of “presence” and “absence.” The function of violence in these plays is not one of (re)victimization, but one that evokes concepts of testimony, witnessing, and storytelling. It will also deal with the problematic perceived trajectory of healing and identity formation through violence in some of the plays. Chapter four looks to the relationship between identity and community and signals how a return to “home” and community can help rebuild positive Indigenous identities and becomes the final act of resistance. Chapter five examines the relationship between storytelling (in the theatre), history, and witnessing trauma. It proposes that Native storytelling, especially in the theatre, is an act of survivance that challenges historical absences. Finally, in chapter six, I look forward to the transnational applications of my research and gesture to Indigenous eco-theatre as one avenue that promotes the decolonization of Indigenous peoples globally. | Ph.D. | women | 5 |
| Campbell, Sara E. | Mandrak, Nicholas E. | Exploring Spatiotemporal Community Assembly using Taxonomic and Functional Dimensions of Biodiversity | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2020-06 | Determining how diversity is generated and maintained in ecological communities is a central goal of community ecology and conservation. Ecologists have long aimed to explain the processes responsible for the assembly of communities and although many hypotheses have been proposed, understanding what makes a non-native species successful continues to be the principal question in invasion ecology. Addressing these topics is inherently complex given that the mechanisms that regulate diversity are often dependent on the spatial and temporal scale at which they are quantified and are further complicated by pervasive context dependence. This thesis examines the spatiotemporal changes in, and community assembly processes governing, functional and taxonomic dimensions of biodiversity in fish communities of the Laurentian Great Lakes in response to the establishment of non-native species and extirpation of native species. I show that both taxonomic and functional dimensions of local and regional diversity are increasing over time. Between-community diversity has increased and decreased for functional and taxonomic dimensions of diversity, respectively, indicating the presence of both biotic differentiation and homogenization that is temporally dynamic. Environmental filtering selects for similar species due to a shared affinity for local conditions and explains establishment success of non-native species as well as local and regional patterns of diversity. Community assembly and composition is also highly regulated by dispersal and historical effects due to the glacial history of the region. | Ph.D. | environment, conserv, ecology | 13, 15 |
| Campbell, Stephen Douglas | Li, Tania | Contesting Migrant Labour: A Politics of Precarity on the Thai-Myanmar Border | Anthropology | 2015 | The global proliferation of export processing zones, linking migrant labour to international markets and global supply chains, has established these sites as critical components of contemporary globalised capitalism. As regulatory enclaves of industrial production, export processing zones are marked by forms of population administration organised around the optimisation of low-waged, flexible labour. This dissertation is a study of the social construction of formal and informal labour regulation at one such regulatory enclave. It focuses on the Mae Sot Special Border Economic Zone in northwest Thailand, where some 200,000 plus Myanmar migrants have been engaged in highly precarious employment in garment and textile manufacturing, agriculture, and service work since the early 1990s. While formal state policy significantly impacts the on-the-ground regulation of migrant labour in Mae Sot, the local situation exhibits a variety of overlapping, formal and informal regulatory regimes. These multiple regimes of regulation are subject to continual processes of contestation, negotiation and compromise, with uncertain effects on Mae Sot's border capitalism. In order to trace these processes, I present ethnographic accounts of migrants engagement with various state and private actors, including the Mae Sot police, officials of the Thai government's Labour Protection Office, private passport companies, and non-governmental organisations. I further trace the emergence of migrant social formations, shaped by the particular conditions of low-waged, flexible labour as well as despotic employment practices and coercive policing. The dissertation concludes by following the organisational efforts of a group of migrants employed at one Mae Sot garment factory, as they seek to raise their wages and improve their working conditions over the course of a year. Throughout, I find that migrants' everyday practices and patterns of struggle are shaped both by the site's network of governmental rule and by the disciplinary powers of the local police. | Ph.D. | production, industr, wage, labour. Employment | 8, 9, 12 |
| Campeau, Holly | Levi, Ron | Policing in Unsettled Times: An Analysis of Culture in the Police Organization | Sociology | 2016-11 | This dissertation examines how actors within a public sector institution - a police organization - use culture to make sense of a shifting occupational landscape. Interviews with 100 police officers and field notes from 50 ride-along hours were collected over the course of 18 months in the police service of a medium-sized city. Rather than conceive "police culture" as an ideal-type of values and attitudes, this project engages with concepts from sociological literature on culture and organizations to re-conceptualize police culture as a "resource" officers deploy to navigate what can be risky work in a contentious organization. First, contrasting traditional cultural depictions of police officers as unremittingly mission-oriented and indivisible, findings reveal the fragility of officer solidarity and unwillingness to engage with risky situations. Expanding surveillance outside the reach of law enforcement (e.g. cellphone videos, social media, etc.) contribute to uncertainty as officers carry out their duties. Second, police engage with a combination of myths and generational scripts in ways that both defend and challenge the status quo in their organization. "Old-school" scripts sustain the prominence of paramilitarism, camaraderie and athleticism. And while "new-generation" scripts are mainly deployed ceremonially to signal legitimacy to external policing constituents, some officers also use them to express the importance of education, the banality of military mindsets, and the need for equitable practices to be implemented on a more routine basis. Finally, results show that police rely on jointly established understandings about their local community to both perform and justify their organization's non-conformity with certain industry standards. Overall, insofar as change in policing is the objective in the current era of wavering public confidence and fiscal crisis, this study suggests that mere top-down policy reform is insufficient: organizational policy and actual practices are only loosely-linked and those charged with implementing a new course of action (i.e. senior officers) are often the staunchest supporters of non-change. Without a disruption to the lock-step hierarchical structure of the police organization, institutional reform is likely only to emerge generationally, as the most promising energy for transformative change rests among cohorts entering the occupation at a particularly unsettled time. | Ph.D. | institution | 16 |
| Campos, Luis Roberto | Audrey, Macklin | Archiving Memory: Explorer and Trader Accounts as Evidence in Aboriginal Rights and Title Litigation | Law | 2014-11 | This project examines the extensive use of explorer and trader narratives as evidence in aboriginal rights and title litigation. It is difficult to reconcile the conflicting--and often extreme--interpretations of these texts as mostly imaginative literature, a view increasingly held outside of the law, and as authoritative evidence, a position adopted in legal proceedings. Generally, my work reconsiders epistemic practices in aboriginal rights and title proceedings. Specifically, it turns to a literary framework to reflect on the empirical value of historical narratives. Additionally, by utilizing the concept of archive as a critical tool, my work also seeks to comprehend the law's continuing predilection for these texts. Ultimately, while evidential proceedings are generally regarded as oriented toward generating trial knowledge, I argue that in fact the substantive law has driven courts to the imperial texts and has, in effect, constructed the conditions of their necessity and reliability. Both the loosening of evidential rules--to create a story-telling space-- and the unique criteria-legal tests has contributed to their evidential hegemony, often at the expense of aboriginal histories, which are seen as anthropological curiosity. Significantly, this thesis does not suggest the imperial narratives have no empirical or evidential value. It does, however, urge trial actors to account for their limitations. And, by doing so, a broader objective may be served: a fresh examination of the current substantive criteria of aboriginal rights and title law, particularly as it impacts evidential parity between the aboriginal and imperial stories. | S.J.D. | rights | 16 |
| Canizares Perez, Mayilee | Badley, Elizabeth M||Glazier, Richard H | AN AGE-PERIOD-COHORT ANALYSIS OF HEALTH STATUS AND HEALTHCARE USE IN CANADA: ARE BABY BOOMERS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER GENERATIONS? | Medical Science | 2017-11 | BACKGROUND: There are concerns for the provision of healthcare services in Canada given the large numbers of ageing baby boomers. However, little is known about how they differ in their health profile and patterns of healthcare use compared to other generations. This thesis describes three studies, based on a longitudinal survey of the population, examining the trajectories of multimorbidity and healthcare use (i.e. conventional care and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)) across five birth cohorts. METHODS: Using data from the Longitudinal National Population Health Survey (1994-2011), the thesis studies examined 10186 participants belonging to one of the five birth cohorts: pre World War II (born: 1925-1934), World War II (born: 1935-1944), older (born: 1945-1954) and younger (born: 1955-1964) baby boomers, and Generation X (Gen Xers, born: 1965-1974). Hierarchical age-period-cohort analysis was used to examine the contributions of age (life-course), period, and cohort effects in changes in multimorbidity, use of conventional care (i.e. primary care and specialist services users), and CAM use. RESULTS: Each succeeding recent cohort had higher odds of reporting multimorbidity than their predecessors. Furthermore, Gen Xers and younger boomers, particularly those with multimorbidity, were less likely to use primary care than earlier cohorts. The increasing levels of multimorbidity explained the higher specialist use observed in recent cohorts. Likewise, at corresponding ages, more recent cohorts reported greater chiropractic and CAM use than their predecessors. The use of conventional care was positively related to greater CAM use, but did not contribute to changes over time or to cohort differences in CAM use. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need for policies addressing important generational differences in healthcare preferences and the balance between primary and specialty care to ensure integration and coordination of healthcare delivery. The findings also highlight the importance of planning interventions and policies to deal with more recent birth cohorts entering into older age with worse health than previous generations. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Cao, Jie | Zhu, Xiaodong | Three Essays in Macroeconomics | Economics | 2016-06 | This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 studies a life-cycle pattern of female labor supply (hours per woman) in Japan. It exhibits an "M" shape with the second peak lower than the first one. Employing a micro-data set, I show that the pattern can be understood as a result of labor supply behavioral differences across different types of women and demographic composition changes along the life cycle. I then build a life-cycle model featuring transitions between heterogeneous types of women, human capital accumulation and childcare cost. The calibrated model accounts for the aggregate pattern well. Counterfactual experiments suggest that narrowing gender wage gap would have a larger positive effect on female labor supply than lowering childcare cost, a result mostly explained by the human capital channel. Chapter 2 studies the links between idiosyncratic distortions and potential aggregate losses. Under the economic environment of Restuccia et al. (2008) (RR), I characterize analytically the mappings from distortions to total factor productivity (TFP) and other aggregate measures. Using these mappings, I explain in a unified way three features emerged from RR's numerical experiments, where endogenous exit of firms is assumed away and distortions are restricted so as to have no impact on capital accumulation. Additionally, I explain why these features disappear when distortions affect capital accumulation. I then extend RR's study by introducing the endogenous exit margin and find that various aggregate losses can respond to this margin quite differently. Chapter 3 studies financial frictions and resource misallocation in China's manufacturing sector. I emphasize two aspects of the financial frictions in the Chinese context. One is credit discrimination: Unproductive state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have easy access to credit while productive non-SOEs are credit constrained. The other is that the credit constraint faced by non-SOEs is much tighter than those in financially developed countries. Using a firm-level data set, I find that a potential 24% TFP gain can be achieved if the credit constraint faced by non-SOEs is at a level similar to the one in the US, and that 53% of the gain can be attributed to improved allocations between SOEs and non-SOEs. | Ph.D. | gender, women, wage | 5, 8 |
| Capatina, Elena | Kambourov, Gueorgui | Essays on the Allocation of Talent, Skills and Inequality, and Life-cycle Effects of Health Risk | Economics | 2012-03 | This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay studies how health risk affects individuals' economic decisions due to changes in productivity, required medical expenditures, available time and survival probabilities implied by changes in health status. It assesses the role of these four channels in determining labour supply, asset accumulation and welfare using a life-cycle model calibrated to the U.S. economy. I find that all channels and the interactions between them have large implications for the macroeconomic variables studied. Health has larger effects for the non-college than college educated, explaining a significant fraction of the difference in labour supply, degree of reliance on government transfers and asset accumulation across education groups. Improving non-college health outcomes to approach those of college graduates results in large welfare gains, higher labour supply, and significantly lower reliance on government welfare programs. The second essay studies the evolution of wage inequality in the United States between 1980 and 2002 in a framework that accounts for changes in the employment of physical and cognitive skills and their returns. I find that within education-gender groups, average employed cognitive skills have remained constant, while average physical skills have declined. The returns to high levels of cognitive skills have increased dramatically, while returns to low levels of cognitive skills and physical skills have remained approximately constant. Skills account for approximately half of the increase in the college wage premium, and for a small but growing fraction of residual wage inequality. The final essay studies the sorting decisions of students with different levels of analytical and verbal skills into college fields of study. I build a model where each field tests and perfectly reveals to potential future employers only the students' skill that is intensively required in that field. Students' expected wages after graduation are a function of their revealed skill levels and firms' expectations of the unrevealed skills given the chosen field. I show how the size of each field and the average talent it attracts depend on the average skill levels, on skill dispersion and on the degree of correlation between skills in the student population. | PhD | equality, employment, labour, wage, inequality | 5, 8, 10 |
| Carbajal, Maria Patricia | Bickmore, Kathy | BUILDING DEMOCRATIC CONVIVENCIA (PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE) IN CLASSROOMS: CASE STUDIES OF TEACHING IN MEXICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS SURROUNDED BY VIOLENCE | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2018-06 | Mexico is suffering from an avalanche of violence and school surroundings are not the exception. Although teachers’ perceptions tend to consider that violent contexts around schools increase the levels of school violence, large-scale international studies show that even when schools are located in high-crime areas, they can develop low levels of school violence by promoting communitarian relationships, equal access to quality education, and democratic participation. Some qualitative inquiries in Latin America have attempted to explain causal pathways for building peaceful relationships in schools by applying the theoretical construct of democratic convivencia (peaceful coexistence). However, scarce research in this field has been accomplished. This qualitative multiple-case study examined how three purposely selected Mexican teachers (fifth and sixth grades), through their classroom pedagogies, fostered (or not) the development of democratic convivencia in regular urban elementary public schools located in violent neighborhoods, the apparent consequences of these pedagogies for student-participants, and the factors that helped or hindered this process. Data included 23 observations in classrooms (of 90 minutes each in average), six individual interviews with teachers, and six group interviews with 20 students. While these three teachers followed official textbooks, they found spaces –within and outside the curriculum– to include elements of the three dimensions of pedagogies for democratic convivencia: inclusion, equity and conflict (resolution) dialogue. Results show that these teachers offered students meaningful lived experiences of inclusion and community-building by recognizing and affirming (to different degrees) students’ identities. They offered valuable (though ambivalent) opportunities for students’ equitable access to academic success by balancing students’ academic status. They also tended to use educative peacekeeping (avoiding punishment) and/or some elements of peacemaking as main conflict resolution strategies. Contrastingly, these teachers offered limited opportunities for deliberation and collective decision-making processes, two important elements for facilitating the development of students’ democratic capacities. Despite contradictions and limitations: poverty, students’ painful experiences with violence, extensive official curriculum content, and national standardized tests, these teachers showed that it is possible to implement pedagogies based on the three dimensions of democratic convivencia that may offer students opportunities for experiencing new horizons of human relationships in impoverished and violent contexts. | Ed.D. | poverty, peace, equitable, urban | 1, 5, 11, 16 |
| Cardon, Nathan | Halpern, Rick | “A Dream of the Future”: Race, Empire, and Modernity at the Atlanta and Nashville International Expositions, 1895-1897 | History | 2014-06 | For a region often viewed as outside the processes of modernization, the United States South’s international expositions were symbolic opportunities to demonstrate its embrace of a narrative of industrial, cultural, and racial progress. Taking the 1895 Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition and the 1897 Nashville Tennessee Centennial Exposition as an analytical basis, this dissertation investigates how southerners transformed modernity by making it “Jim Crow.” It explores the ways white and African American southerners performed a variety of racialized and classed identities that embraced and critiqued modern progress. Responding to the dissolution of old certainties, southerners turned to science and technology as a stable site of truth and meaning. At the same time, their response to modernity was rooted in the South and its developing “New South” cities. In these cities southerners formulated a distinctive modernity that was compatible with the region’s racial dynamics and was adopted by the North as the nation expanded and encountered non-white colonial subjects. This dissertation makes clear the ways in which southerners, often considered on the periphery of change, responded to dislocating events by rooting their responses in the local. The specific economic, social, racial, and political realities of the South all shaped southerners reactions to and articulations of modernity and empire. By narrowing the question of southern modernity to a specific time and space this dissertation redefines a key moment in southern and American history, showing how responses to the dislocating effects of modernity were grounded in the specific temporal and spatial contexts of the South and were exported as American empire. | PhD | industr, cities | 9, 11 |
| Carey, Graham Hamilton | Sargent, Edward H | A Surface Chemistry Approach to Enhancing Colloidal Quantum Dot Solids for Photovoltaics | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2015-11 | Colloidal quantum dot (CQD) photovoltaic devices have improved rapidly over the past decade of research. By taking advantage of the quantum confinement effect, solar cells constructed using films of infrared-bandgap nanoparticles are able to capture previously untapped ranges of the solar energy spectrum. Additionally, films are fabricated using simple, cheap, reproducible solution processing techniques, enabling the creation of low-cost, flexible photovoltaic devices. A key factor limiting the creation of high efficiency CQD solar cells is the short charge carrier diffusion length in films. Driven by a combination of limited carrier mobility, poor nanoparticle surface passivation, and the presence of unexamined electrically active impurities throughout the film, the poor diffusion length limits the active layer thickness in CQD solar cells, leading to lower-than-desired light absorption, and curtailing the photocurrent generated by such devices. This thesis seeks to address poor diffusion length by addressing each of the limiting factors in turn. Electrical transport in quantum dot solids is examined in the context of improved quantum dot packing; methods are developed to improve packing by using actively densifying components, or by dramatically lowering the volume change required between quantum dots in solution and in solid state. Quantum dot surface passivation is improved by introducing a crucial secondary, small halide ligand source, and by surveying the impact of the processing environment on the final quality of the quantum dot surface. A heretofore unidentified impurity present in quantum dot solids is identified, characterized, and chemically eliminated. Finally, lessons learned through these experiments are combined into a single, novel materials system, leading to quantum dot devices with a significantly improved diffusion length (enhanced from 70 to 230 nm). This enabled thick, high current density (30 mA cm-2, compared to typical values in the 20-25 mA cm-2 range) devices, and the highest reported solar power conversion efficiency to date. | Ph.D. | solar | 7 |
| Carolyn, Hatch | Meric, Gertler | Competitiveness by Design: An Institutionalist Perspective on the Resurgence of a 'Mature' Industry in a High Wage Economy | Planning | 2013-06 | This thesis examines the learning dynamics underpinning the resurgence of Canada's office furniture manufacturing sector, which underwent dramatic growth following its near collapse in the wake of the North American trade liberalization beginning in the late 1980s. It investigates the role that design and quality have played in prompting a move up-market and enhancing the sector's competitiveness. It also focuses on other leaning processes that drive economic growth, looking at attempts to transfer workplace practices from Continental Europe to Canada, as well as the institutional obstacles that shape and constrain these processes. Finally, it examines how furniture firms learn from their customers, and the key role played by market intermediaries such as sales agents, dealers, interior designers, and architects in linking producers with consumers as well as influencing the final furniture product. The learned behaviour hypothesis that is central to this thesis suggests that globally competitive firms operating in a Canadian institutional context prosper by learning how to produce (i.e. industrial practices and processes) and what to produce (i.e. design-intensive, high quality products) from the above sources that are both internal and external to the manufacturing firm. The scope of research considers the social and organizational practices through which manufacturing knowledge is integrated into innovation processes, as well as their dynamics, spatiality and temporality, the institutional forces that shape the skills, training, tenure and design dimensions of a high performance workplace, and the mechanisms and conditions that mediate the transfer of manufacturing knowledge at a distance. The empirical analysis entails a mixed-methods approach including a survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews with industry experts. The analysis contributes to core debates in economic geography and the social sciences concerning the role of proximity and distance in innovative production, and the structure / agency debate. In summary, it finds that economic growth in the office furniture sector in Canada is dependent upon not only local knowledge networks and flows but also global sources of innovation and competitive advantage. It also advances an agency-centered institutionalist economic geography by showing that institutions interact in complex ways with the decision-making of economic actors to shape local labour dynamics and the behaviour of firms. | PhD | economic growth, labour, innovation, industr, trade, production | 8, 9, 12 |
| Carpenter, Sara Catherine | Mojab, Shahrzad | Theorizing Praxis in Citizenship Learning: Civic Engagement and the Democratic Management of Inequality in AmeriCorps | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2011-11 | Over the last twenty years, the academic work on citizenship education and democracy promotion has grown exponentially. This research investigates the United States federal government’s cultivation of a ‘politics of citizenship’ through the Corporation for National and Community Service and the AmeriCorps program. Drawing on Marxist-feminist theory and institutional ethnography, this research examines the ways in which democratic learning is organized within the AmeriCorps program through the category of ‘civic engagement’ and under the auspices of federal regulations that coordinate the practice of AmeriCorps programs trans-locally. The findings from this research demonstrate that the federal regulations of the AmeriCorps program mandate a practice and create an environment in which ‘politics,’ understood broadly as having both partisan and non-partisan dimensions, are actively avoided in formalized learning activities within the program. The effect of these regulations is to create an ideological environment in which learning is separated from experience and social problems are disconnected from the political and material relations in which they are constituted. Further, the AmeriCorps program cultivates an institutional discourse in which good citizenship is equated with participation at the local scale, which pivots on a notion of community service that is actively disengaged from the State. Through its reliance on these forms of democratic consciousness, the AmeriCorps program engages in reproductive praxis, ultimately reproducing already existing inequalities within U.S. society. The primary elements of this reproductive praxis have been identified as ‘a local fetish’ and the ‘democratic management of inequality.’ The local fetish refers to the solidification of the local as the preferential terrain of democratic engagement and is characterized by an emphasis on face-to-face moral relationships, local community building, and small-scale politics. The democratic management of inequality refers to the development of discursive practices and the organization of volunteer labor in the service of poverty amelioration, which is in turn labeled ‘good citizenship.’ This research directs our attention to a more complicated notion of praxis and its relationship to the reproduction of social relations. Also, this research brings into focus the problem of the conceptualization of civil society and its relationship to democracy and capitalism. | PhD | poverty, equality, inequality, production, institution | |
| Carr, Rebecca | Flood, Colleen M | How Effective is the Right to Health at Improving Equity in the Levels of Access to Childhood Immunisations? | Law | 2014-11 | This thesis explores various inequities in children's levels of access to vaccinations and considers how the normative aims of the international human right to health are being implemented in order to address them. It is argued that the right to health is a transformative right that places obligations upon states to achieve health equity. In light of this objective, this thesis investigates ways in which the right to health, in reality, is serving to influence levels of access to childhood vaccinations - a health equity enhancing intervention - and the rights impact upon equity is assessed throughout. It concludes that applications of the right to health are effective at procuring the equitable levels of access to childhood vaccinations that, in theory; its framework has been designed to effect. Remaining inequities in levels of access to childhood vaccinations might be more effectively addressed, if further rights-oriented approaches to the issues are adopted. | LL.M. | health, equitable, rights | 3, 5, 16 |
| Carrier, Nathalie | Gaskell, Jane | What Catches On? The Role of Evidence in the Promotion and Evaluation of Educational Innovations | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2015-03 | The debate about and support for innovation in education has heated up. There is hype around the possibilities novel and disruptive innovations can have on changing education practice and providing more effective learning solutions. The advent of the Internet and social media technologies allows for an abundance of innovation to be promoted and shared with and between educators, and the increasing use of technologies like iPads in the classroom results in the advertisement of innumerous new education applications. For the educator, there is the difficult challenge of knowing how to sift through this material and separate those innovations that may hold value for their classroom situation from those that have gained wide appeal. In this thesis I take an interest in how certain education innovations catch on and are adopted on a large scale, and how the marketing of these innovations in various kinds of media as well as the ways they are evaluated by teachers, contribute to this process. I separate my findings into two articles and use a set of six qualities generated from the research use and social psychology literatures as a guide (evidence, compatibility, accessibility, practicality, credibility, appeal), focusing on evidence in relation to the other five qualities. In the article on media promotion, I find the kinds of evidence used rarely came from formal research studies, but from anecdotal forms of evidence and general statistics related to use of the innovation. In the article on teacher evaluation, I find the teachers were open to trying out innovations, but had different strategies for evaluating and selecting them. Evidence was often discussed as a low priority criterion on which to base judgments. Overall, the results of this thesis show how difficult it can be to make a quick and informed judgment about these innovations where the teachers lacked tools to evaluate them consistently and effectively and where a wide range of strategies were used in their promotion. This suggests an important need that is largely not addressed in teacher training programs and professional development around providing teachers with guidance and training in their search, selection and evaluation processes. | Ph.D. | educat, innovation | 4, 9 |
| Carriere, Jessica Erin | Hulchanski, David J.||Zuberi, Daniel | Neighbourhood Policymaking and Political Discourses of Exclusion, Risk and Effect: An Interpretive Policy Analysis of the Evolution of Place-Based Programs in the UK and Canada | Social Work | 2017-06 | The impact of various forms of neighbourhood change on the social fabric of metropolitan areas is a major concern throughout affluent Western nations. In addressing spatially-concentrated problems, urban policy-making and development patterns have become increasingly similar across the advanced capitalist countries. There is a transnational movement among policy-makers toward the application of geographically targeted, neighbourhood-based interventions referred to as area-based, or place-based policies. In cities across Western Europe, Australia, the United States, and Canada, we see the emergence of a new policy language: new policy frames, or storylines, which function to discursively construct the individuals and communities that reside in technocratically-defined ‘disadvantaged’, ‘priority’ or ‘at-risk’ neighbourhoods. Asking the question ‘why do certain ideas catch on in public policy’, this dissertation utilizes interpretive policy analysis (IPA) to understand how policy actors go about adopting transnational policy language, ideas and concepts – and how they enact them in their local contexts. This dissertation is focused on place-based policies and programs in the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada. Divided into three stand-alone papers, the dissertation explores three different but conceptually analogous topics. In doing so, it outlines the geographical and ideological origins of a place-based approach to local governance, and the means through which it has been established in local systems of governance. In the absence of scholarly research on ‘how, why, where and with what effects’ place-based policies have been circulated, learned, reformulated, and mobilized, this dissertation seeks to develop an understanding of the adaptations in the modalities and rhetoric of political actors, institutions and policy regimes which have accompanied the enactment of place-based policies at various scales of governance. IPA links ‘high’ politics (i.e., elite political institutions and multinational organizations) with ‘low’ politics (i.e., local and community-level governance). It orders and relates discursive elements (subjects, objects, tropes, narratives) to processes of meaning-making, representation and action. The IPA approach is used here to help account for the assemblage of policies, political discourses and regulatory tools that have produced new, place-based logics of 'social exclusion', 'risk' and 'neighbourhood effects' that are now widely understood as universal aspects of cities. | Ph.D. | governance, urban, cities | 11, 16 |
| Carroll, Shawna M. | Sykes, Heather | Negotiating Subjectivities Through Literature: Anticolonial Counternarrative Fiction Book Clubs and Their Possibilities | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2019-06 | “Tired of reading straight, racist, colonial fiction?... Want to read meaningful anti-colonial fiction that disrupts racism on Turtle Island?” This is the call I put out to engage participants in this anticolonial book club research project. Reading two books together, I asked: How do five racialized women and one Indigenous woman negotiate their subjectivities during processes of reading anticolonial fiction? This research question was the aim of the project, but the anticolonial political commitments are at the foundation of the anticolonial feminist literacy theoretical framework and feminist Deleuzian methodology used. As a queer, white, settler researcher and educator, I created the project with a desire-based lens, in order to focus on the subversion, persistence, and thriving in the feminist anticolonial space. I recruited the six women with two main goals: examine how reading anticolonial fiction can help facilitate the negotiation of subjectivities and examine how reading fiction that is not white settler colonial in nature can create generative spaces for people to thrive. Using the feminist Deleuzian methodological framework through the anticolonial feminist literacy theoretical lens allowed me to focus on the hot spots of the data that arose in the book club conversations, one-on-one meetings, and reading journals. Focusing on these hot spots, or what ‘glowed,’ I explain how reading and language are embodied processes and allowed one participant to continue becoming bilingual-immigrant-racialized-woman in ways that resist molar/static understandings of her subject positions and a more liveable life. Focusing on a second hot spot, I explain how reading anticolonial counternarrative fiction enabled a space for deep self-reflection which helped the participants build trust in their subject positions and experiences of marginalization, which allowed them to create a new consciousness outside of white settler colonial discourses. In the last data chapter, I explain how this anticolonial book club created an anticolonial community of care to walk alongside Indigenous resurgence initiatives through feminist solidarity and horizontal comradeship. Walking alongside Indigenous resurgence is always contextual, but this research project shows one way in which this is possible in a non-reactionary, productive way. | Ph.D. | women, queer, inclusive | 5 |
| Carsley, Sarah Elizabeth | Parkin, Patricia C||Birken, Catherine S | Using Electronic Medical Records to Examine Childhood Obesity Outcomes in Community-Based Primary Care | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2018-06 | Childhood obesity has become a global public health priority. Obesity leads to increased risk of several co-morbid health conditions such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and mental health problems. Growth monitoring is the long-standing child health practice to identify children who fall outside healthy growth parameters. It has been proposed as a key activity for prevention of obesity in children. Growth data is now predominantly stored in primary care electronic medical records (EMRs). However concerns about data quality have limited its use for public health and research. Five inter-related studies were conducted to better understand the feasibility of using routinely collected anthropometric data from primary care EMRs for childhood obesity surveillance and outcomes. In our survey on current growth monitoring practices, only 21% of primary care providers reported using a length board to measure length in infants less than two years of age. Growth measurements were reported to be performed most often during scheduled well-baby/child visits, but rarely during sick visits. Encouragingly, intra- and inter-observer reliability of height/length, and weight was found to be acceptable when using appropriate equipment and measurement methods. Body mass index z-score data in EMRs was found to be 90% complete and 97% accurate. The main inaccuracies were due to recording measurements with inconsistent units and data entry errors. Using reliable data from EMRs, it was found that preschool-aged children (2 to | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Carson, Andrea | Webster, Fiona | Ambiguous Endings: A Feminist Sociological Approach to Women’s Stories of Discontinuing Medical Fertility Treatment in Canada | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2019-11 | This dissertation problematizes the dominant cultural view that assisted reproductive technologies (ART), such as in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination, are highly successful medical treatments that produce ‘miracle babies’. I preface this study by outlining the landscape of fertility clinics and ART legislation in Canada, emphasizing the murkiness of Canada’s data on ART use and efficacy. I then use a post-structural feminist theoretical lens to focus on women’s experiences of discontinuing medical fertility treatment in Canada. I interviewed 22 women who received various forms of fertility treatment in Canada and who were at various stages in relation to treatment (e.g. on a temporary break from treatment, left treatment indefinitely, had yet to decide whether to initiate treatment after a diagnosis). Using a sociological form of narrative analysis, I analyzed these stories and co-constructed eight narrative themes. Through these eight narrative themes, I demonstrate two things: first, that there are multifaceted ways in which women engage these technologies and ultimately leave, and secondly, that there are implicit gendered power relations at work within the fertility clinic that may make it more difficult for women to leave treatment when it is financially, emotionally, and physically beneficial for them to do so. I highlight the stories of these women and their differing life circumstances, including women across a broad age range (approximately 25 to 50 years of age), two women in self-identified queer relationships, and women with varying degrees of financial security, to elucidate the ambiguous character of ending treatment-- an experience that is often marginalized in the public-facing view of fertility treatment as a highly positive scientific innovation. Out of my interpretations I make eight recommendations for health providers, stakeholders and policymakers to improve fertility care in Canada and to make the experience of medical fertility treatment less physically, emotionally and financially distressing for users. | Ph.D. | health, gender, women, queer, innovation | 3, 5, 2009 |
| Carson, Lindsey D. | Trebilcock, Michael J. | Laws of Unintended Consequences: The Impacts of Anti-Foreign Bribery Laws on Developing Countries | Law | 2015-03 | Over the past quarter-century, the international community has grown increasingly aware of the deleterious impacts of corruption on economic growth, governance institutions, political stability, social freedoms and opportunities, and overall equality and efficiency within and across countries, with the effects most pronounced in the developing world. Corruption's ascent as a priority on the international development agenda has led to the emergence of a global anti-corruption regime engaging governments, civil society, business, and international organizations. Among the most prominent of these multilateral anti-corruption efforts has been the agreement among most of the world's leading economic powers to create legally binding standards that criminalize the bribery of foreign public officials. However, the existing literature examining the impacts of these anti-foreign bribery (AFB) laws has focused nearly exclusively on the statutes' effects on the competitiveness, costs, and investment decisions of regulated firms and individuals, with little investigation of the consequences of the multilateral AFB regime for the countries ostensibly harmed most by corruption - those in the developing world. This dissertation fills that gap in current law and development scholarship, using theoretical, anecdotal, and empirical evidence to identify how AFB laws change the incentives of foreign investors as well as government officials and to analyze how those shifts may ultimately affect the levels, sources, sectors, and types of foreign investment flowing into developing countries. It further considers the consequences of AFB laws for governance institutions and the magnitude and forms of corruption within less-developed countries. Examining critically the range of potential effects, it concludes that, under certain conditions in certain environments, laws prohibiting foreign bribery may undermine the developmental conditions in and prospects for poorer countries. | S.J.D. | governance, institution, enviornment, economic growth, equality | 5, 8, 16 |
| Carter-Chand, Rebecca Ann | Bergen, Doris L. | Doing Good in Bad Times: The Salvation Army in Germany, 1886-1946 | History | 2016-06 | The Salvation Army came into being in an era of empire and it came of age in the heyday of internationalism. Its particular form of internationalism has proved remarkably adaptable to the massive political and social changes that have taken place since the mid-nineteenth century. This dissertation examines the Heilsarmee (the German branch of the Salvation Army) during the tumultuous decades between 1886 and 1946 and the tensions between the organization’s international and the national identities. The dissertation places the Heilsarmee in three main historical contexts: the history of religion in Germany—arguing that the Heilsarmee’s presence points to a religious vibrancy that is often underestimated; the history of internationalism—demonstrating the direct connections between imperialism, Christianity, and internationalism; and debates about German civil society during the Nazi period—revealing the malleable nature of the Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community). After the first Salvationists arrived in Germany in 1886, the Heilsarmee went through a process of transplantation, carving out a place for itself in Germany after turning its focus to social work. During World War I, its transnational entanglements challenged the organization’s internationalist identity and made practical matters difficult as the Heilsarmee ceased communication with the headquarters in London. Ultimately the structure proved resilient and the organization’s postwar relief work in Germany boosted its public profile. The Heilsarmee came to be seen as the embodiment of goodness in Germany, as is observed in the many representations of the Salvation Army in Weimar-era cultural production. In the 1920s and 1930s the Heilsarmee became increasingly nationalist and politically conservative. It supported the rise of the Nazi Party, sharing many of the same social values. After 1933, while struggling to maintain some measure of autonomy, it became a participating body in the NSV (National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization). Although the government restricted its activities, the Heilsarmee was active throughout World War II. As it had in 1914, the Heilsarmee cut off ties with its parent organization in 1939, reuniting when the war ended. In the postwar period the Heilsarmee sought to rehabilitate itself by emphasizing its links to the international Salvation Army. | Ph.D. | institution | 16 |
| Carter, Kimberly | Nedelsky, Jennifer | Engendering Security: Lessons from Post-conflict Central America | Political Science | 2013-11 | Analyzing post-conflict contexts from a feminist perspective sheds light on an important, yet overlooked, fact in peacebuilding research: While human rights are officially recognized and codified by state and international institutions, the actual possibility of enjoying these rights often depends on whether they are respected or violated in private, often intimate, gendered relations. I therefore ask: How might peacebuilding efforts bridge the gap between the promise and practice of women’s rights and basic security in post-conflict contexts? In response, I argue that peacebuilding efforts must foster a feminist vision of positive peace that requires not only the absence of war, but also the elimination of unjust social relations. So long as gendered violence is largely excluded from mainstream peacebuilding theories and practices, a robust human rights regime will remain elusive - even in contexts that are otherwise regarded as peacebuilding "success stories". In theory, the protection and promotion of human rights as part of peacebuilding is not very controversial. The challenge, as I illustrate, is in finding ways to make these rights a meaningful reality (i.e. a behavioural practice) in the lives of a post-conflict population. Based on 92 interviews and extensive participant-observation research in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, I demonstrate how grassroots projects are well-positioned to: a) address the private relations in which gendered violence often occurs, and b) change the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that sustain the gendered power relations and gendered roles subordinating women. I focus on three projects developed by Central American citizens to strengthen women’s rights and basic security: Women’s Police Stations, Nuevos Horizontes (New Horizons) a shelter for survivors of intimate partner violence, and the innovative telenovela or "social soap" Sexto Sentido (Sixth Sense). My findings show how these projects both empower women through a combination of resources, agency and achievements, and challenge traditional gendered roles and identities common in the region, such as machismo, that normalize violence against women. By challenging patriarchal power distributions and gendered identities/roles from the "bottom-up," my research offers baseline examples of how grassroots initiatives can improve women's security, consequently strengthening the rights-based culture necessary for positive peace. | PhD | gender, women, institution, peace, rights | 5, 16 |
| Carvalho, Gustavo | Bernstein, Steven | International Structure, Cooperation, and Sovereign Debt Crises: The Brazilian Debt Restructurings of 1898, 1931, and 1983 | Political Science | 2016-06 | In this dissertation, I offer three main contributions to the literature on sovereign debt. First, I make the case for a structurally-oriented perspective on debt crises. The social institutions that comprise the finance and production structures of the international economy act as conduits for the transmission of crises from developed countries to the periphery of the system, as they increase the relative scarcity of capital through mechanisms such as capital and trade flows. I argue that defaults and moratoria are thus better understood as reactions to the relative scarcity of capital at the international level and not as opportunistic strategies adopted by utility-maximizing politicians who want to avoid the costs associated with repayment. Second, I reevaluate the relationship between debtors and creditors and how they cooperate. I argue that they cooperate by means of positive-sum debt restructuring processes whose results fall within a continuum between full repayment and full repudiation. In other words, cooperation is based on a compromise and not on the enforcement of the original terms of debt contracts by creditor countries or the creditors themselves. Finally, I offer a deeper and more nuanced analysis of the role that the structural power of creditors and creditor countries play in the sovereign debt market, and I argue that they shape the social arrangements that regulate their relationship with debtor countries. I support my claims with qualitative historical studies of three past cases of Brazilian moratoria and debt renegotiations - the Funding Loans of 1898 and 1931, and the Financing Program for 1983. | Ph.D. | trade, production, institution | 10, 12, 16 |
| Carvalho, Ibrahim Oliveira Lopes de | Prado, Mariana M | An Assessment of FDI in Angola: Signalling Readiness to Attract Investment | Law | 2019-11 | The financial system can be of extreme importance to improve capital accumulation and promote economic growth. This study, provides an assessment of the role of the financial system, specifically the banking sector, to attract FDI in Angola. Furthermore, it is also assessing how attracting FDI into the financial system can lead to the attraction of FDI into other sectors. | LL.M. | economic growth | 8 |
| Cascante, Helena Isabel | Davidson, Robert A. | On Globalization and Civil Society: Mediating Spatial Practice in Twenty-first-century Latin America | Spanish | 2011-06 | “On Globalization and Civil Society: Mediating Spatial Practice in Twenty-first-century Latin America” explores the tensions between globalization and civil society from a multi-geographical and multidisciplinary angle. The dissertation is informed by theories of space, power, identity, citizenship, and postmodernity, as well as mediatic and socio-political analyses of conditions that have consistently challenged democracy and the formation of a just civil society specifically in the Colombian and Mexican contexts but throughout Latin America as well. I argue that national institutions fundamental to the formation of knowledge and the construction of identity--namely national citizenship, geopolitical and symbolic borders, and the national media--impose undue limits and power on globally affected individuals. After acknowledging and analyzing the dehumanizing way in which these national institutions limit individual freedoms and participation within local and global public spheres, I take a more hopeful stance as I explore humanizing instances that transcend victimization through the imagination and creation of alternative social orders that destabilize traditional apparatuses of authority through agency-enhancing initiatives. Through close readings of contemporary Colombian and Mexican narrative by Héctor Abad Faciolince, Jorge Franco, Heriberto Yépez, and Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, and a case study of Un Pasquín, Vladimir Flórez’s independent alternative Bogotá media project, I call for a new understanding of the possibilities of the twenty-first-century public sphere in Latin America. I contend that by subverting dominant paradigms of power, these alternative spheres provide a new model from which to think and advance a just global order. In short, I argue that, despite globalization’s mostly deleterious consequences for the world’s most at risk local populations, the formation of a more humanizing spatial and mediatic practice that fosters alternative public spheres responsive to the human need for individual agency and subjectivity, though seemingly unattainable, is in fact possible. | PhD | institution | 16 |
| Cashman, Rafael Mark | Portelli, John | Conflict and Creativity in Jewish Modern Orthodox Girls’ Education: Navigating Tradition and Modernity | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2015-11 | This study investigates Jewish Modern Orthodox girls’ dissonant, creative and adaptive responses to their religious and gender identities as they negotiate the tensions between authority and autonomy in an all-girls’ high school. It considers how the school, as a socializing agent, plays a role in this development. This study is framed by a post-structural research agenda that explores the complexity of religious practices in modernity, and a feminist post-structural body of research around alternative girlhoods in modernity. This ethnographic study contends with the notion that the presence of autonomy and other modern values such as egalitarianism, are a necessary challenge to the girls’ capacity to accept religious and patriarchal authority in a self-affirming way. Instead, it found that girls accept or creatively adapt to, and rarely dissent from, aspects of religion’s authority, while still maintaining their expectation of autonomy and egalitarianism. They achieved this state through a complex and creative re-structuring of normative religious categories in their religious lives, rather than through a bifurcation of the competing discourses, as had been posited in previous research. Existing gender norms in Modern Orthodox society reinforced the girls’ lack of dissonance. Even where girls bifurcated between their religious and social lives in order to maintain each, aspects of creativity emerged. For example, in their non-ritual lives inequality was an anathema, but they were not bothered by ritual inequity. They accepted and even supported their exclusion from certain rituals because they felt it afforded them more, not less autonomy, by freeing them from unwanted religious responsibilities. In this way, they used existing patriarchal structures to achieve what they understood as a personal advantage. Several themes emerged from this study. First, modern religious practitioners who live within divergent discourses re-form and re-create traditional categories in order to live holistic modern-religious lives within the inherited structures of traditional religion. Second, gender plays a role both in supporting existing norms, but also afford opportunities to challenging them. Third, despite the strong presence of autonomy amongst the girls, dissonance toward religious authority was surprisingly low. | Ph.D. | gender, equality, inequality | 5, 10 |
| Casimirri, Giuliana | Kant, Shashi | Outcomes and Prospects for Collaboration in Two Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Forest Management Negotiations in Ontario | Forestry | 2013-11 | Successful intercultural natural resource management collaboration is challenged by divergent worldviews and power disparities. Studies of non-intercultural collaboration efforts demonstrate that good outcomes emerge when procedural conditions are met, such as fostering open and high-quality deliberations, use of interest-based bargaining techniques and collective definition of the scope of the process. The applicability of these procedural conditions to intercultural collaboration efforts, such as negotiations between Aboriginal people, government resource managers and sustainable forest license holders, has not been explored. The aim of this thesis is to examine the outcomes and factors influencing two intercultural collaborations in the northeast region of Ontario. Semi-structured interviews with collaboration participants, negotiation meeting minutes and draft agreements are used as data sources. Following a general inductive coding approach and using QSR NVivo 2, the analysis of outcomes in both cases highlights improvements in relationships, increased understanding among the parties and the gradual definition of the scope of the negotiation. The findings also demonstrate that several barriers, including a lack of clear policy and legislative framework for collaboration and different definitions of the problem discourage intercultural collaboration. In one negotiation process, frequent and high quality deliberations, using an interest-based negotiation approach, and efforts to mutually define the scope of the negotiation prior to substantive negotiation do not overcome these systemic barriers to collaboration. However, in another negotiation process, the social and relational characteristics of the community and participants do contribute to the parties recognizing their interdependence, focusing on shared goals and undertaking joint action. This research demonstrates that the development of shared goals and acknowledgement of divergent problem definitions are more important to intercultural collaboration success than the development of improved relationships and establishing a mutually acceptable scope prior to collaboration. In the absence of a supportive legislative basis for the distribution of forest decision-making authority and responsibilities, this understanding of how Aboriginal, government and forest industry participants can collaborate is useful for developing more effective and equitable intercultural collaboration. | PhD | equitable, industr, forest | 4, 9, 15 |
| Castillo, Yessica Rico Mancebo del | Wagner, Helene H. | Effects of Rotational Shepherding on Plant Dispersal and Gene Flow in Fragmented Calcareous Grasslands | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2012-11 | Understanding dispersal and gene flow in human-modified landscapes is crucial for effective conservation. Seed dispersal governs colonization, recruitment, and distribution of plant species, whereas both pollen and seed dispersal determine gene flow among populations. This PhD thesis tests the effect of rotational shepherding on seed dispersal and gene flow in fragmented calcareous grasslands. Calcareous grasslands (Gentiano-Koelerietum pyramidatae vegetation) in Central Europe are semi-natural communities traditionally used for rotational grazing that experienced a decline of plant species during the 20th century due to abandonment of shepherding. This PhD profits from a management project started in 1989 in Bavaria, Germany to reconnect previously abandoned calcareous grasslands in three non-overlapping shepherding systems. Two vegetation surveys in 1989 and 2009 revealed colonizations in previously abandoned grasslands reconnected by shepherding. First, I propose a comprehensive approach to identify determinants of community-level patch colonization rates based on 48 habitat specialist plants by testing competing models of pre-dispersal and dispersal effects and accounting for post-dispersal effects. Mean source patch species occupancy in 1989, and structural elements in focal patches related to establishment explained community-level patch colonization rates. Secondly, by adapting the community analysis to all 31 individual species of the same community with sufficient data, I corroborate the role of shepherding to support dispersal for a range of species, even if they lack seed morphological traits related to zoochory. Thirdly, for the habitat specialist Dianthus carthusianorum, I genotyped 1,613 individuals from 64 populations at eleven microsatellites to test the effect of dispersal by sheep on spatial genetic structure at the landscape scale. Genetic distances between grazed patches of the same herding system were related to distance along herding routes, whereas ungrazed patches showed isolation by geographic distance. Lastly, within individual grassland patches, shepherding significantly decreases the degree of relatedness among neighboring individuals (kinship structure) and increases genetic diversity. My thesis contributes towards understanding the effects of zoochory on spatial dynamics in plant populations across scales. | PhD | conserv | 15 |
| Catalini, Christian | Ajay, Agrawal | Three Essays on the Impact of Geographic and Social Proximity on Innovation | Management | 2013-11 | The ability of an economy to generate and diffuse ideas has a profound influence on its ability to sustain growth. Our understanding of a key economic phenomenon behind agglomeration and modern growth - localization economies - relies on basic assumptions about how knowledge is recombined locally versus over distance. Whereas scholars have extensively studied the effects of proximity on the diffusion of ideas, the micro-foundations of knowledge recombination remain undeveloped. In particular, we know surprisingly little about how geographic, social and knowledge proximity shape the way ideas are generated, recombined, and discovered by others. In the first study, I provide novel empirical evidence grounded in an original theoretical framework to explain how the composition of near-neighbor scientists influences the direction of inventive activity. Co-located individuals are more likely to engage in low expected value but high variance payoffs interactions ("water cooler"). To address endogeneity concerns due to selection into co-location and matching, I exploit an unexpected random relocation of scientists due to asbestos removal at UPMC Paris. Results are consistent with the theory and shed light on how proximity affects innovation: random versus chosen co-location leads to higher levels of experimentation, and has a positive impact on breakthrough ideas for collaborations across academic fields. In the second study I explore the decline in collaboration that follows the separation of previously co-located co-authors. Not all co-author pairs are equally affected by an increase in geographic distance, as social proximity substitutes for it when the returns to collaboration are high. Collaborations that bridge otherwise disconnected communities of experts are the most negatively affected by separation. Finally, the third study examines how social and geographic proximity affect the discovery and funding of creative projects in online crowdfunding. Whereas the internet reduces many distance-related frictions, local and distant investors exhibit different investment patterns. The distance effect is explained by investors who likely have a social relationship with the entrepreneur, and does not persist after the first investment (i.e., it is likely driven by search costs). Thus, crowdfunding seems to eliminate many distance-related frictions, but not those related to social interactions. | PhD | innovation | 9 |
| Catungal, John Paul | Leslie, Deborah ||Farish, Matthew | For us, by us: political geographies of race, sexuality and health in the work of ethno-specific AIDS service organizations in global-multicultural Toronto | Geography | 2014-06 | This dissertation traces the role of racialization in the production of spaces of sexual health organizing and social service provision. Drawing on insights from geographies of sexualities and the literatures on critical race theory, it examines how spaces of care that emerged from local responses to HIV/AIDS in 1980s Toronto (e.g., AIDS service organizations or ASOs) became sites for the normalization of whiteness and the exclusion of people of colour. It also documents the ways that activists of colour disidentify with mainstream ASOs by naming the exclusions – and deadly effects – engendered by white normalization and by adopting “for us, by us” approaches to sexual health that symbolically and literally made specific spaces for people of colour. Central to these acts of disidentification, I argue, are geographical discourses and practices, which include place-making tactics that mark certain spaces as “ethno-specific” and the identification and targeting of particular sites (e.g., event-spaces, clubs, neighbourhoods) for sexual health outreach to communities of colour. This dissertation is based on case studies of three ethno-specific ASOs in Toronto: the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention, the Asian Community AIDS Services, and the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention. Interviews with current and former workers (board members, volunteers and paid staff) form the main archive – along with supplementary archival and media analysis and participant observations – for the analysis that follows. A consideration of the geographies of e-ASOs’ work highlights the political salience of race for sexual and health politics, and provides a forum for bringing geographies of sexualities into conversation with queer of colour analysis. It thus contributes to the theoretical and political project of anti-racist geographies of sexualities not only by naming the exclusions that people of colour face in sexual political spaces, but also by focusing on their tactics of survival, resilience and resistance. | PhD | health, gender, queer, worker | 3, 5, 2008 |
| Cauchi, Laura | Magnusson, Jamie Lynn | The Drive to Innovation: The Privileging of Science and Technology Knowledge Production in Canada | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2012-11 | This dissertation project explored the privileging of knowledge production in science and technology as a Canadian national economic, political and social strategy. The project incorporated the relationship between nation-state knowledge production and how that knowledge is then systematically evaluated, prioritized and validated by systems of health technology assessment (HTA). The entry point into the analysis and this dissertation project was the Scientific Research and Experimental Design (SR&ED) federal tax incentive program as the cornerstone of science and technology knowledge production in Canada. The method of inquiry and analysis examined the submission documents submitted by key stakeholders across the country, representing public, private and academic standpoints, during the public consultation process conducted from 2007 to 2008 and how each of these standpoints is hooked into the public policy interests and institutional structures that produce knowledge in science and technology. Key public meetings, including the public information sessions facilitated by the Canada Revenue Agency and private industry conferences, provided context and guidance regarding the current pervasive public and policy interests that direct and drive the policy debates. Finally, the “Innovation Canada: A Call to Action Review of Federal Support to Research and Development: Expert Panel Report,” commonly referred to as “The Jenkins Report” (Jenkins et al., 2011), was critically evaluated as the expected predictor of future public policy changes associated with the SR&ED program and the future implications for the production of knowledge in science and technology. The method of inquiry and analytical lens was a materialist approach that drew on the inspiring frameworks of such scholars as Dorothy Smith, Michel Foucault, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Melinda Cooper, and, Gilles Deleuze. Ultimately, I strove to illuminate the normalizing force and power of knowledge production in science and technology, and the disciplines and structures that encompass it and are hooked into it where the privileging of such knowledge becomes hegemonic within and by the regimes of knowledge production that created them. | PhD | institution, production, industr, innovation | 9, 12, 16 |
| Cerny, Judy Marie | Neysmith, Sheila | Low-income Mothers, Provisioning, and Childcare Policy: A Vision of Shared Caring | Social Work | 2009-11 | This research examines how childcare policy in Ontario, Canada assists and constrains low-income urban women’s strategies of provisioning for their children. Childcare policy refers to the range of programs that assist families in reconciling paid work and parenthood. In Ontario, Canada, these programs include childcare fee subsidies, tax deductions, parental leave policies, child benefits/allowances and a program regulating live-in caregivers. Provisioning is used to capture an array of daily work-related activities (e.g. paid, unpaid and caring labour) that mothers perform to ensure their children’s survival and well-being. The qualitative study, based on individual semi-structured interviews with 20 low-income mothers living in an urban community, found that women carry out various activities in provisioning for their children. Some of these are familiar and visible activities such as providing domestic caring labour, engaging in the labour market, and undertaking volunteer work in the community. Others are less visible tasks such as sustaining their health and that of their children, making claims/asserting their rights, and ensuring safety. Low-income urban mothers provision under numerous constraints. A continuous shortage of money and childcare issues are at the core of these constraints. The study also found that the mothers encounter a variety of barriers in the community, such as a limited availability of social and community services and a high level of violence/criminal activity in their neighbourhoods. Issues related to poor health, an inadequate diet, or the necessity of caring for children with special needs further constrain women’s lives. Limited English language skills, racial barriers, and the struggles of adapting to a new country add to the multi-dimensional barriers facing low-income urban mothers. The research indicates that mothers use a variety of strategies to counter these barriers; however, these strategies cost women in terms of their time as well as their physical, mental and emotional energy. Childcare policy assists to a certain extent by providing some support to low-income mothers. Enhancements to the existing policies have potential benefits; however, they are like patches on a leaky bucket. Ultimately, the bucket needs to be replaced with a new way of envisioning family responsibilities, work and childcare. | PhD | rights, urban, labour, women | 5, 8, 11, 16 |
| Cervenan, Amy Martina | Leslie, Deborah | Placing the Festival: A Case Study of the Toronto International Film Festival | Geography | 2017-11 | Economic geographers researching the film industry have focused on the dual spatial pattern of film work that has arisen since the sector restructured in the 1970s. The new geography of film has been characterized simultaneously by concentration (i.e. major clusters) and dispersal (i.e. â runawayâ production). During this time, film festivals have proliferated in cities across the globe, yet remain largely unexplored. This presents a need to better understand major film events as important, if temporary, nodes in the cultural production system. Adopting a festival-centric approach, this case study of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) yields particularly rich insights on the potential value festivals create for the film industry, festival participants, and the host region. In part, this is because TIFF is connected to a global festival circuit and is embedded in a city with established local film production. My research takes up the growing interest in events, extends conceptualizations of value-creation, and considers how TIFF brings together international actors from across the film value chain. The research foregrounds the role of an active audience in valorizing an experiential cultural product, and in building the reputation of local film. This research contributes three major findings. First, it finds that TIFF acts as a temporary cluster, which creates opportunities for networking, relationship-building, and industry learning. It is also an important site for selling and promoting work, and creating pipelines to access non-local knowledge, markets and resources. Second, this research explores the expanded role for consumer influence, and finds that audience engagement with films at TIFF creates an information-rich environment, which influences business decisions, professional development, and marketing activities. Third, this research finds that TIFF contributes to place-making and culture-led urban development. These findings have implications for policy, practice and research across industry, government and academic communities. | Ph.D. | industr | 9 |
| Chahal, Nutan (Nita) | McCrindle, Brian W | Motivational Interviewing as a Lifestyle Management Strategy for Dyslipidemic Overweight and Obese Adolescents | Medical Science | 2016-06 | Background: Dyslipidemia, overweight and obesity (OW/OB) in the pediatric population contributes to metabolic complications and future cardiovascular disease. The prevalence varies but the problem is a global issue. Adolescence is a challenging developmental stage with many factors influencing adolescent health. Lifestyle management is the preferred treatment. Motivational interviewing is a promising counselling approach; however, evidence is limited for this population. Objectives and Methods: The substantive focus involved exploring MI for dyslipidemic adolescents. Study A was a retrospective cohort comparison aimed to assess a collaborative educational approach with MI elements for pediatric patients (n=38) newly referred to a specialized lipid clinic, versus historical patients who had received a more didactic educational approach (n=31). Study B involved theoretical research to build and graphically represent a conceptual framework for MI, including special applications to adolescents. Study C was a mixed-methods, randomized controlled trial (N=32) to evaluate the outcomes of MI counselling, comparing adolescents together with a parent versus adolescents alone. A qualitative component occurred following the quantitative data collection to explore the perceptions of participants. Findings: Despite some limitations, sufficient promise was observed in the Study A findings to move forward with a detailed plan to rigorously explore MI. Significantly improved lifestyle and anthropometry outcomes were observed favouring the collaborative education approach with MI. The theoretical work in Study B defined four key elements for a MI framework: the Person, the Problem, the Process, and the MI Counsellor. The between group results for Study C were equivocal; however, with both groups combined in a secondary analysis, there were significant improvements in nearly all outcomes. The interviews enriched an understanding of the participantsâ lives, lifestyle change, and the counselling process. Conclusion: Motivational interviewing is an effective and desired counselling strategy for adolescents with dyslipidemia and overweight/obesity. Further research with a longer period of observation is needed to determine whether achieved lifestyle improvements can be sustained in the long-term. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Chakraborty, Kalyan Sekhar | Miller, Heather M.-L | Subsistence-Based Economy and the Regional Interaction Processes of the Indus Civilization Borderland in Kachchh, Gujarat: A Bio-Molecular Perspective | Anthropology | 2019-11 | This dissertation investigates the role of food producers in the Indus Civilization borderland in Kachchh, Gujarat, particularly during the Urban/Mature phase (2600-1900 BCE). During the Urban phase, this region was occupied by two distinct categories of settlements. The settlements from the first category were strategically situated, contained Classical Harappan type materials, and were specialized in craft production, craft-related trade and administration; these are popularly known as Classical Harappan-type settlements. The settlements from the second category, popularly known as Sorath-type settlements, were located inland, contained regional pottery and practiced agro-pastoralism. The analysis of the subsistence economy of Kotada Bhadli, a Sorath-type settlement, provides an evaluation of the nature of economic production at this settlement and the possible day-to-day interactions between this settlement and neighboring non-food craft-producing settlements. To date, our understanding of rural food production and regional everyday interaction between different specialized groups in the Indus borderland is limited, and therefore, through providing a detailed account of the subsistence-related economy at a rural settlement, this thesis aims to evaluate the nature of specialized staple production, and provide more data for the understanding the nature of staple exchange between these settlements specialized in diverse economic activities. To incorporate this everyday regional interaction in our current understanding of regional interactions during the Indus age, I summarized and arranged different arguments from various scholars into distinct models. The analysis of molecular, isotopic and micro-botanical remains suggest the involvement of Kotada Bhadli with specialized sedentary to semi-sedentary pastoralism and some form of household-level cultivation of plants, along with some importing of agricultural grains and Harappan-style craft goods from neighboring settlements. Based on these results, I propose a likely cooperative regional interaction between diverse groups and specialists such as craft producers, traders, raw material distributers and staple producers, in the presence or absence of a centralized or regional authority during the Urban phase. Such reciprocal relationship between diverse specialized groups not only supported the production of wealth but also helped to maintain status and identity, as well as dealing with critical environmental, economic and probably political conditions that may have ultimately helped sustain this civilization over many centuries. | Ph.D. | economic growth, food, industr, rural, production | 1, 8, 9, 11, 12 |
| Chakravartty, Dolon | Cole, Donald C | Attending to Differential Environmental Exposures Among Racialized Newcomer Women in Canada: Why so Difficult? | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2019-11 | This thesis aims to increase understanding of differential environmental exposures and to explore how inequity in environmental health can be viewed and articulated for newcomer and racialized women in Canada. Based on a subpopulation biomonitoring study of heavy metal concentrations among South and East Asian newcomer women in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), entitled “Metals in Newcomer Women (MNW),” this thesis is comprised of three individual papers. The first paper modified selected reflective and transformational questions of an Intersectionality-Based Analysis to frame my examination of the environmental research itself. Through a personal reflexive process, I analyzed the processes by which the research was identified, constructed, developed, and funded to examine assumptions, definitions, and values that contributed to study decisions. Transformational questions provided a framework to think about the problem differently and about potential challenges in doing so. The second paper addresses how adopting elements of community-based research (CBR) in the MNW study increased relevance and reach for our communities of interest. The paper describes how CBR elements included developing meaningful partnerships with public health organizations and actively engaging peer researchers, as well as newcomer women with similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The latter bridged the gap with many of our participants and helped to overcome known barriers to participation. As health professionals themselves, with experience interacting in clinical settings, peer researchers provided expertise and familiarity, shared more adequate explanations of relevant topics, and helped participants overcome the reluctance to participate in a scientific study. The third paper uses mixed methods to explore the “exposure experience” of MNW study participants and to understand how individuals may process, interpret and respond to the knowledge of the presence of bodily contaminants. Grounding research in the experiences and perspectives of underrepresented populations provides a deeper and broadened understanding of non-dominant views and definitions of the environment, allowing an examination of intersecting identities and social categories and how these contribute to conceptualizing exposures. The findings of this thesis suggest that challenging dominant conceptual frameworks that underpin environmental health research, through the application of intersectional and critical race perspectives and the use of community-based approaches, can augment and enhance equity-relevant implications of environmental health for racialized newcomer women | Ph.D. | health, women, inequality | 3, 5, 10 |
| Chan, Brian Chun-Fai | Krahn, Murray D||Mittmann, Nicole | Economic Burden of Chronic Ulcers | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2017-06 | Chronic ulcers (pressure ulcer, diabetic foot ulcer and leg ulcer) are an underappreciated yet growing concern to the health care system. These conditions are commonly observed in various health care settings and are associated with an increase in health care utilization and cost. The current understanding of the economic burden of chronic ulcers is limited to short term costs. The aim of this thesis is to expand the knowledge of the cost-of-illness of chronic ulcers by presenting three related studies. The first study systematically reviewed cost-of-illness studies on chronic ulcers. Included studies were heterogeneous, limiting our ability to aggregate and compare results. There was a lack of extensive, long-term studies evaluating attributable cost of chronic ulcers. Thus, the usefulness of cost-of-illness studies for chronic ulcers to policy-makers is limited. In the second study, we evaluated the lifetime cost-of-illness of chronic ulcers using Ontario administrative data. The economic impact of a concurrent pressure ulcer for individuals with a spinal cord injury was explored in the third study. This thesis highlights the substantial economic burden of chronic ulcers. The results presented are only a portion of the total financial burden associated with treating individuals with this condition. Additional efforts by health care policy decision makers, clinicians and patients in targeting preventative interventions will reduce the downstream cost of chronic ulcers freeing up limited health care resources to treat other health concerns. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Chan, Elic | Fong, Eric | Mahjonging Together: Distribution, Financial Capacity, and Activities of Asian Nonprofit Organizations in Canada | Sociology | 2014-06 | Using a nationwide database of nonprofit organizations, this thesis examines the impact of the socio-spatial environment and resource dependency on the development of ethnic organizations among four East Asian communities (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese) across Canadian cities. The thesis makes an original contribution to the theoretical understanding of ethnic communities by evaluating the different perspectives for understanding three related but distinct properties of ethnic organizations (1) distribution – the number of organizations in a given city; (2) financial capacity – total revenue of the organization; and (3) cross-border activities – location and type of activities pursued outside of Canada. The findings suggest that organizations develop more in response to social need rather than group resource, and that the number of organizations is greater in cities where levels of residential concentration are high. The analysis shows that group characteristics such as income and size of enclave do not predict higher revenue among nonprofits. Rather, the effect of government funding is the most consistent predictor of financial capacity across all groups. Overall, the results highlight the importance of inter-group dynamics for institutional development, with traditional predictors such as group resource playing a lesser role. In regards to their activities, the results show that organizations of recent immigrant groups do not necessarily operate programs back home as some groups have more programs in places outside their home country. Additionally, source of funding and religion play a role in determining the location of cross-border activities. These findings challenge the current perspective on transnational linkages as ethnic organizations have the power to mediate group interests away from the host-home nexus. Together, the research offers a novel empirical approach to examine how groups organize at the community level and provides an alternative perspective in the understanding of integration, social cohesion and sense of belonging in multicultural societies. | PhD | cities | 11 |
| Chan, Eugene Yue-Hin | Mitchell, Andrew A | Is There In Choice No Beauty? Motivation for Choosing Moderates Choice Overload | Management | 2014-11 | Some research suggests that increasing the number of options may be harmful for consumers by increasing their difficulty with choosing, which increases their likelihood of experiencing regret. However, other research suggests that increasing the number of options may also be beneficial by satisfying consumers' diverse tastes and variety-seeking needs. Thus, it isn't clear whether - or when - more choice would be harmful or beneficial for consumers. I propose that the motivation for choosing as either extrinsic or intrinsic impacts consumers' satisfaction with the chosen option differently. For extrinsic choices where consumers are choosing an option to achieve some separable consequence, more choice increases the difficulty with choosing, which decreases satisfaction. For intrinsic choices where consumers are choosing an option for its inherent rewards, more choice increases the autonomy from choosing, which increases satisfaction. Crucially, this difficulty or autonomy occurs because consumers perceive variety with more choice, even though more choice does not necessarily mean a greater objective amount of variety. I conclude by discussing how understanding the motivation for choosing has implications for researchers and marketers who study or provide choice to consumers. | Ph.D. | consum | 12 |
| Chan, Jeffrey | Morrow, Peter M | Essays in International Trade | Economics | 2016-11 | This thesis consists of three chapters that empirically investigate issues pertaining to international trade. Chapter 1 provides clear evidence that increased exposure to import competition from low-income countries results in lower quality matches between workers and firms, using matched employer-employee data from Italy. I measure match quality as the match (worker-firm) fixed effect from a wage regression that includes a rich set of time-varying observables, as well as worker and firm fixed effects. Import shocks reduce match quality, shifting the entire distribution of match effects leftward. This occurs because workers accept worse matches, but not because of workers in good matches leaving their jobs. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that, for the average firm, a one standard deviation increase in import competition decreases profitability per worker by approximately 10% through lower match quality. Chapter 2 examines whether import competition affects the gender wage gap. While specifications without worker or firm fixed effects suggest that the wage gap closes with increased import competition, I find that import competition lowers women's wages relative to men when controlling for unobserved worker and firm heterogeneity. Accounting for these sources of heterogeneity is important because: 1) women, particularly women that earn low wages, are more likely than men to change industries or leave the sample as a response to import competition, and 2) firms that employ women are relatively more likely to exit and reduce employment due to import competition. Chapter 3 provides evidence that that increased numbers of U.S. troops in a country is associated with increased exports to and imports from the U.S. I provide evidence suggesting that this effect is not driven by favourable U.S. policies that coincided with troop increases. I find that the pro-trade effect of troops is concentrated in differentiated and consumer goods industries. I also find some evidence that soldiers provide a boost to the trade of cultural goods. The results in this paper complement abundant anecdotal evidence that suggests that American military personnel bring back foreign goods and culture while also spreading American culture and goods. | Ph.D. | gender, women, employment, worker, wage, industr, trade | 5, 8, 9, 10 |
| Chan, Phoebe Tsz-Wai | Halfar, Jochen | Subarctic Crustose Coralline Algae as Recorders of Past Climatic and Environmental Change | Earth Sciences | 2016-06 | If unabated, the continued anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide is expected to lead to warming and acidification of ocean waters, with widespread and detrimental impacts on marine ecosystems. Proxy records stored in biomineralized shells and skeletons of long-lived paleoclimate archives are essential for understanding long-term climate variability - previously unresolvable based on spatiotemporally limited observations. In this dissertation, geochemical and physical proxies from Clathromorphum spp. crustose coralline algae (CCA) are used for interpreting past climatic and environmental changes in the subarctic North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans. Micro-computed tomography techniques are used to examine the algal skeleton, and reveal changes in skeletal density in relation to recently observed acidification off the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Metabolic trade-offs associated with continued growth and calcification in acidifying seawaters may have resulted in the production of weaker (less-dense) skeletons since 1980. However, correlations indicate that in addition to acidification, sunlight availability and temperature stress are also important factors influencing the ability of CCA to calcify. Furthermore, barium-to-calcium (Ba/Ca) ratios are utilized as proxies for phytoplankton productivity in northern Labrador, Canada, such that: Higher (lower) algal Ba/Ca values are interpreted as decreased (increased) productivity coinciding with the expansion (melting) of sea-ice. This multi-centennial record of algal Ba/Ca indicates a long-term increase in North Atlantic productivity that is unprecedented in the last 365 years. Conversely, in mountainous coastal regions surrounding the Gulf of Alaska where high sediment loads are present in seasonal runoff, algal Ba/Ca is used as an indicator for freshwater runoff. Ba/Ca is inversely correlated to instrumental salinity, and indicates a unique period of freshening (2001 â 2006) that is related to increasing glacial melt and precipitation on mainland Alaska. The results presented here illustrate the physiological responses of coralline algae to acidification, and provides much-needed data for future projections of climate and environmental change. | Ph.D. | water, climate, environment, ocean, marine | 13, 14 |
| Chan, Vincy | Colantonio, Angela | A Population Based Perspective of Children and Youth with Acquired Brain Injury in Ontario, Canada | Rehabilitation Science | 2016-06 | Acquired brain injury (ABI) includes traumatic (TBI) and non-traumatic brain injury (nTBI). It is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and can negatively affect the long-term development of children and youth living with an ABI. The objective of this thesis was to address current gaps in pediatric ABI research by (1) establishing the foundation for efforts to reach an appropriate case definition for pediatric TBI; (2) addressing the paucity of information on the health service use of children and youth with nTBI; and (3) expanding current knowledge on children and youth with a brain tumour by including data on individuals with metastatic and non-malignant brain tumours. Population based healthcare administrative data from Ontario, Canada, were used and children and youth with an ABI were identified using International Classification of Diseases Version 10 codes. Results showed that the number and rate, healthcare use, and intentional and mechanism of injury differed significantly when including/excluding 'unspecified injury to the head' diagnostic codes in the case definition for TBI, providing evidence for the importance of accurately interpreting current findings for the TBI population in reference to the case definition. Data also showed that although the rate of nTBI episodes of care was not as high as the rates reported for the TBI population, the health service use among the nTBI population was just as high as the TBI population. This suggests that the pediatric nTBI population puts an increased burden and demand on the healthcare system with currently little data to direct resources and planning. Finally, despite higher rates of malignant brain tumour episodes of care, patients with benign and unspecified brain tumours also use acute care and post-acute care services, indicating that current estimates for brain tumour and associated healthcare use are underestimates. This thesis provided a comprehensive update on children and youth with ABI from a population based perspective that has implications for policy and decision-making, health services planning, and resource allocation for ABI. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Chandan, Priyanka | Bergquist, Bridget A | Evaluating the Application of Photochemical Mass-Independent Fractionation of Mercury (Hg) in Natural Systems | Earth Sciences | 2018-11 | Mercury (Hg) is a toxic and globally distributed contaminant that poses a serious risk to humans, wildlife, and the environment due to its ability to bioaccumulate along the food webs in aquatic ecosystems. The overarching goals for this dissertation are to: (1) evaluate the potential of mass-independent fractionation (MIF) of Hg during photochemical reactions to understand biogeochemical Hg cycling in natural systems; and (2) utilize Hg mass-dependent (MDF) and mass-independent fractionation (MIF) to characterize and trace Hg sources in the environment. In Chapter 2, Hg isotopes link environmental factors to Hg MIF preserved in freshwater lower trophic organisms to quantify MMHg photodegradation in freshwaters and understand how Hg MIF is preserved in natural systems. In Chapter 3, Hg isotopes in pelagic ocean higher trophic biota assess the relative contribution of Hg sources, transformation processes (methylation/photodemethylation), and other factors that may control the Hg isotopic signature of open-ocean fish in different regions and depths of the pelagic ocean. Chapter 4 assess Hg isotopes in atmospheric gaseous Hg(0), particulate Hg (PHg), and snow to understand Hg photochemical processes and sources in the Arctic. This dissertation demonstrates source characterization of atmospheric Hg species from multiple emission sources and better understanding of transformation processes that alter Hg source signatures, and highlights the potential of stable Hg isotopes to contribute to the increasing knowledge of Hg sources and transformation processes in the atmosphere, aqueous ecosystems and cryosphere. | Ph.D. | environment, ocean | 13, 14 |
| Chang, Christine | Ensminger, Ingo | Impacts of Short Photoperiod, Elevated Temperature, and Elevated CO2 on Cold Hardening in Eastern White Pine | Cell and Systems Biology | 2017-03 | Cold hardening in evergreen conifers is induced during autumn by decreasing temperature and photoperiod, and may be delayed or impaired by climate warming. This work aimed to 1) characterize the control of photoperiod versus temperature over the downregulation of photosynthesis, changes in carbohydrate metabolism and development of freezing tolerance that occur during cold hardening in Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus L.) seedlings; and 2) assess the impact of elevated temperature and elevated CO2 on the timing and extent of cold hardening in P. strobus seedlings under controlled and field conditions. Under controlled conditions, short photoperiod rapidly induced adjustments of leaf starch and sucrose, while low temperature rapidly induced adjustments of leaf pigments, photosynthesis and accumulation of glucose. Prolonged exposure to short photoperiod and low temperature induced downregulation of photosynthesis, accumulation of cryoprotective carbohydrates, and development of freezing tolerance. A novel 16-kD dehydrin protein was induced by short photoperiod and maximally expressed with the addition of low temperature; expression of this dehydrin strongly correlated with freezing tolerance. Under controlled conditions, elevated temperature suppressed the downregulation of photosynthesis and accumulation of cryoprotective compounds; freezing tolerance was impaired, but provided sufficient protection against average historical winter temperatures at the seedlingsâ native origin. The combination of elevated temperature and elevated CO2 enhanced photosynthesis and, under long photoperiod, enhanced accumulation of starch. Elevated CO2 did not further impair development of freezing tolerance. Under field conditions, development of freezing tolerance was initiated during early autumn by decreasing photoperiod. Frost exposure in mid-late autumn induced the downregulation of photosynthesis, accumulation of soluble sugars, and strongly enhanced freezing tolerance. However, the projected temperature increase for the year 2050 did not perceptibly delay downregulation of photosynthesis or impair freezing tolerance. These findings indicate crucial roles for short photoperiod and low temperature during cold hardening. Warmer climates with elevated CO2 levels may allow P. strobus seedlings to benefit from increased carbon uptake and extend photosynthetic activity during the autumn. Elevated temperature and CO2 may impair the development of freezing tolerance, but is unlikely to increase risk of damage incurred by winter exposure for P. strobus seedlings grown in southern Ontario. | Ph.D. | climate | 13 |
| Chang, Rachel Ying-Wen | Abbatt, Jonathan P. D. | Arctic Aerosol Sources and Continental Organic Aerosol Hygroscopicity | Chemistry | 2011-06 | Atmospheric particles can affect climate directly, by scattering solar radiation, or indirectly, by acting as the seed upon which cloud droplets form. These clouds can then cool the earth's surface by reflecting incoming sunlight. In order to constrain the large uncertainties in predicting the ultimate effect of aerosol on climate, the sources of atmospheric particles and their subsequent ability to turn into cloud droplets needs to be better understood. This thesis addresses two parts of this issue: the sources of Arctic aerosol and the hygroscopicity of continental organic aerosol. Small particles were observed in Baffin Bay during September 2008 that coincided with high atmospheric and ocean surface dimethyl sulphide (DMS) concentrations suggesting that the aerosol formed from oceanic sources. An aerosol microphysics box model confirmed that local DMS could have produced the observed particles. In addition, the particle chemical composition was measured using aerosol mass spectrometry in the central Arctic Ocean in August 2008 and particles were found to be 43% organic and 46% sulphate. Factor analysis further apportioned the aerosol mass to marine biogenic and continental sources 33% and 36% of the time, respectively, with the source of the remaining mass unidentified. The second part of the study parameterises the hygroscopicity of the ambient organic aerosol fraction (κorg) at Egbert, Ontario and Whistler, British Columbia. This was done using two methods: 1) by assuming that the oxygenated organic component was hygroscopic and that the unoxygenated organic component was non-hygroscopic, κ of the oxygenated component was found to be 0.22 ± 0.04, and 2) by assuming that κorg varied linearly with the atomic oxygen to atomic carbon ratio, it could be parameterised as κorg = (0.29 ± 0.05) × (O/C). Calculations predict that knowing κorg is important in urban, semi-urban, and remote locations whenever the inorganic mass fraction is low. | PhD | solar, climate, ocean | 7, 13, 14 |
| Chaparro, Maria Paula | Grusec, Joan E | Overcoming the Cancer Experience: Narrative Identity in Young Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer | Psychology | 2015-11 | Although young adult survivors of childhood cancer (YAs) face a series of significant physical and psychosocial challenges, only a portion of these survivors will actually develop mental health difficulties. Research on narrative identity and posttraumatic growth suggests that developing a coherent life-story narrative, making meaning, and finding benefits from negative life events, can contribute to better psychosocial adjustment. The aim of the present study was twofold: understanding the mechanisms that link young adults’ cancer experience with positive psychosocial adjustment outcomes (i.e., empathy, attributional style, and coping), and investigating maternal distress-related communication and young adult attachment style as predictors of narrative identity and psychosocial adjustment. One hundred and eighteen YAs completed an adapted version of McAdams’ life-story interview (2001), which was coded for meaning making and coherence. YAs could choose to talk about cancer or non-cancer-related turning points. YAs completed online questionnaires assessing posttraumatic growth, attachment style, and three measures of psychosocial adjustment. Ninety-five mothers of YAs wrote a narrative of a past experience with their child’s cancer, and completed measures of distress-related disclosure, cancer-talk, and dispositional optimism. Results revealed that meaning making was higher for cancer-related than for non-cancer related turning points. Posttraumatic growth mediated the associations between cancer meaning making and both coping and empathy. Mothers’ cancer-talk frequency was related to YA cancer meaning making, and mothers’ distress-related disclosure was associated with YA posttraumatic growth. Mothers’ narrative coherence about a memory of their child’s cancer was unrelated to YA narrative coherence, but was positively related to YA negative attribution style, but only for mothers who scored low on optimism. Finally, secure attachment style was associated with YA narrative coherence about their cancer experience, and YA overall narrative coherence (cancer and non-cancer) mediated between YA secure attachment and YA empathy. These findings indicate that YA’s successful incorporation of the cancer experience into their narrative identities through meaning making and posttraumatic growth processes is linked to positive psychosocial adjustment outcomes. Also, mothers who engage in distress-related conversations with their children contribute to YA’s capacity to overcome their cancer experience. Implications for research on narrative identity development and clinical practice are discussed. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Chassels, Caroline June | Bascia, Nina | Responses to Difference in Initial Teacher Education: A Case of Racial and Linguistic Minority Immigrant Teacher Candidates | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2011-06 | Despite recent rhetoric advocating the diversification of the teacher workforce, teachers in Canada continue to be disproportionately white and of northern European heritage. By investigating responses to difference experienced by racial and linguistic minority immigrant teacher candidates in an initial teacher education program, this thesis sheds light on dynamics that challenge or support the induction of minoritized individuals as members of the teaching profession in Canada. Data collected through interviews with eight immigrant teacher candidates, four instructors, and five student support staff of an initial teacher education program at an urban Canadian university (UCU) indicated that teacher candidates at UCU experienced varied responses to difference. Influences of both hegemony and collaboration were found in the university and practice teaching contexts where individuals representing regimes of competence enacted challenging assimilationist or supportive multiculturalist ideologies. In practice teaching contexts, although all of the teacher candidates engaged with at least one collaborative mentor teacher and they all persisted to complete the program, six of the eight teacher candidates (i.e., all of the linguistic minority teacher candidates in this study) encountered a challenging and significantly discouraging relationship with a mentor teacher. In these hegemonic contexts the legitimacy of the teacher candidates appeared to be measured against a conception of “real teachers” as “real Canadians” who are native English-speakers and who are familiar with the culture of schooling in Canada. Within the university context, student support staff were consistent in their critical awareness of the challenges and supports experienced by teacher candidates while instructors demonstrated a range of familiarity with these issues and with concepts of equity as they relate to the experiences of teacher candidates. Implications of this study support the following: continuation of programs offered through student support services; educative collaborative implementation of UCU’s equity policy to promote greater consistency in its influence; application of inclusive pedagogy; greater curricular emphasis on social power and constructions of difference; recognition of immigrant teachers’ linguistic capital; development of a collaborative method to evaluate teacher candidates in practice teaching contexts; and continued effort to advance a more profound and consistent influence of multiculturalist ideology in Canadian schools. | PhD | urban, educat, inclusive | 4, 5, 11 |
| Chatterjee, Soma | Mirchandani, Kiran | 'Borders...Are No Longer at the Border': High-skilled Labour Migration, Discourses of Skill and Contemporary Canadian Nationalism | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2016-06 | This dissertation explores the constitutive relationship between immigration and nationalism as manifest in the high skilled labour market of post-liberalization (post 1960s) Canada. I show that as skilled immigration became crucial for Canadian national prosperity, a simultaneous rise in discourses of skill deficit rendered actively recruited immigrants as deficient worker subjects. Unfolding in the decades following liberalization, persistent discourses of deficit - refracted through a systemic privileging of Canadian/Western skills and training (understood as both tangible credentials and intangible soft/cultural skills) - constructed the figure of the immigrant as a prototypically skill-deficient subject struggling to integrate into the Canadian labour market, and by extension, to the larger Canadian society. Scholarship on labour market integration has frequently seen the issue as an example of policy level and administrative disjuncture. In contrast, I argue that skilled immigrants’ marginalization in the labour market of the very nation that recruited them as vital for national prosperity creates a gap between immigrants’ juridical and substantive membership. It is systematic and socio-politically productive. I conduct a critical discourse analysis of post-liberalization skilled immigration policies and related texts (government commissioned reports, press releases, ministerial speeches, and policy backgrounders) and show how the nation state continues to be an exclusive space where immigrants’ welcome is contingent and conditional on their ability to approximate an amorphous and contested Canadianness. I argue that it is through the mobilization of deficit discourses that the post-liberalization state negotiated its increasing reliance on immigrant labour with the historically racially conceptualized criteria for national membership. In the post- liberalization global hierarchy of nation states, the dynamics of welcome (as labour) and expulsion (from membership) allowed Canada to open up the national space to the raceless meritocracy of the best and the brightest, while continuing to re-align it along racial lines. This dissertation makes three key interventions: 1) it repositions the high skilled labour market – typically considered unfettered by practices of racialized nationalism - as a key site for its exercise in post-liberalization era, 2) it argues that training/learning discourses in this context are better seen as nationalist discourses subsumed within the discriminatory notion of Canadian experience, and finally, 3) it proposes a dialogue between scholarships on Canadian nationalism and immigrants’ labour market integration as the conceptual disconnect between these is analytically costly for our understanding of post-liberalization Canadian nationalism. | Ph.D. | labour, worker | 8 |
| Chatwood, Susan Jennifer | Brown, Adalsteinn | Health System Stewardship in Arctic Regions | Medical Science | 2016-11 | This thesis responds to health system challenges in Arctic regions where there are complex and interrelated challenges related to climate change and environmental effects impacts, geographic remoteness, indigenous health needs and values, and health equity. Specifically, the United States (US), Canada, Norway and Finland are studied. The need to further understand the health system context has been emphasized in many international and Arctic forums. How health systems situate or optimize performance in the Arctic context has not been studied previously. This thesis explores how health systems respond with a stewardship framework that aspires to adopt ethical and multi-sector approaches to health. To broaden our lens, we developed new methods that recognize both indigenous knowledge and western science. We captured indigenous and national perspectives, and we enveloped notions of common values (humanity, cultural responsiveness, teaching, nourishment, community voice, kinship, respect, holism and empowerment) that provide a basis for health system comparisons in Arctic nations. Policies and strategies within circumpolar nations that respond to shared context and challenges were identified. In particular, we used a case study approach to highlight how circumpolar health systems organize and respond through health system stewardship functions to the shared circumpolar challenges. Overall, Canada and the United States demonstrated higher levels of self-determination, and Norway and Finland exhibited strengths in strategies and policies influencing work across sectors. While the emphasis on stewardship functions differed, government statements that promoted work across sectors were present in all nations, as were dialogues on the self-determination of indigenous peoples. The findings provide some ssurance that there are common values and goals in Arctic regions, and that the concept of stewardship is an effective response within this context. The findings provide a collection of policy resources and a direction for value-based stewardship of health systems in Arctic regions at the regional, national, self-governing and international level of governments. The development of a performance framework and scorecard for this context will enhance the ability to learn from different approaches to stewardship, and guide trusting relationships and health equity in circumpolar nations. | Ph.D. | health, climate, environment | 3, 13 |
| Chau, KIm | Koren, Gideon||Ito, Shinya | Unraveling the Clinical Efficacy of Probiotics in Pediatrics | Pharmacology | 2016-11 | Evidence have shown that manipulation of the intestinal microbiota with probiotics are promising therapeutic agents for restoring health, particularly in pediatrics, as probiotics holds a good safety profile. Focus has been on the treatment of a number of common pediatric gastrointestinal conditions, leading to a rise in the number of clinical trials and systematic reviews being published. Therefore, an overview of systematic reviews (OoSR) was conducted to consolidate the evidence on the clinical efficacy of probiotics as a therapeutic option to treat pediatric gastrointestinal conditions. Recent attention has been on probiotics for the treatment of infantile colic, as the etiology remains elusive with limited treatment options. Therefore, a 21-day randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted to determine the efficacy of Lactobacillus reuteri DSM 17938 (108 colony-forming units; n = 24) versus placebo (n = 28) to treat colic. Final analyses revealed that colicky infants receiving L. reuteri cried/fussed (min/d) significantly less compared to placebo (Day 21, median [IQR]: 60(64) vs. 102(87); (P=0.045), respectively. Furthermore, more infants in the L. reuteri group showed a 50% crying/fussing time reduction compared to placebo (17 infants vs. 6 (P=0.035); RR: 3.3 [95% CI: 1.55 to 7.03]). Thus, L. reuteri was shown effective at treating colic in breastfed Canadian infants compared to placebo. However, contradictory results from a larger RCT concluded L. reuteri was ineffective. Therefore, a meta-analysis was conducted to determine the effectiveness of L. reuteri to treat colic by pooling treatment effects from five RCT (total n = 335; L reuteri n = 172, placebo n = 163). Pooled estimates revealed infants receiving L. reuteri cried/fussed significantly less (mean difference: 43.5 minutes; 95% CI: 54.3 to 32.6 minutes) and successfully responded to treatment by day 7 (RR = 2.43; 95% CI: 1.41 to 4.16; P | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Chaudhry, Munaza Rubee | Anderson, Geoffrey | Predicting Individual-level Probabilities of Dementia and Diabetes using Health Services Administrative Data | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2015-11 | Health services administrative data (HSAD) provide a timely and readily available population-based data source for health research and planning. To perform disease-specific analyses, individuals with the disease must first be identified in the administrative data. In this validation study, a data modeling method (logistic regression) and two algorithmic modeling methods (random forests and gradient boosted machines) were compared in predicting individual-level probabilities of diabetes and dementia using HSAD. Prevalence for both diseases was calculated to demonstrate a population-level application and A1C testing rates were calculated to demonstrate an individual-level application. Diabetes prevalence and A1C testing rates were compared with the classification-based methods currently used for the Ontario Diabetes Database (ODD). The reference standard data were chart re-abstraction data for a sample of Toronto-areas physician for diabetes and the Ontario sample of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging for dementia. The three-year random forest models were the best-performing models for both diabetes (Nagelkerke’s R2=0.82, C statistic=0.98 and calibration slope=1.02) and dementia (Nagelkere’s R2=0.58, C statistic=0.92 and calibration slope=1.00). Based on the random forest probabilities, the prevalence of dementia in Ontario in 2008/09 was 8.5 percent for females and 5.7 percent for males. The prevalence of diabetes was 5.4 percent for females and 6.5 percent for males. A1C testing rates varied from 38 to 61 percent depending on the probability cutoff used. The probability-based diabetes prevalence was lower than the ODD-based rates and the A1C testing rates were higher than the ODD-rates. Although the random forest models are more complex than the pooling algorithms currently used for the ODD, they offer researchers the flexibility to construct cohorts with sensitivities and specificities specific to each purpose. Algorithmic modeling methods are well suited to research using health services administrative data and should be pursued as an alternative to data modeling methods. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Chaudhuri, Ipsita Nita | Cole, Donald | Participatory Action Research for Environmental Health among Senegalese Peri-urban Farmers | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2010-03 | Participatory action research (PAR) oriented by an eco-system health framework is one approach to involving marginalised peoples in their own problem solving. A PAR project during 2005-06 that engaged peri-urban farmers in Senegal using popular education documented change on environment and health perceptions and behaviour. Health as a theme took on greater importance, as farmers related good health to their ability to work and their overall productivity. Farmers came to better recognize the symptoms of pesticide poisoning and to establish more clearly the link between pesticide-related work practices and health effects. Less clear remained their recognition of symptoms and links with wastewater use practices, though malaria and parasitic infection were linked to urban agriculture. African worldviews, including notions of locus of power, were important determinants of perceived vulnerability to risks. Farmers cited fatigue as an important clue to the work-health interface and indicator of overall wellbeing. Farmers’ understanding evolved to become more dynamic, describing the complex web of environmentally-related health risk. By 2006, farmers experimented more with less toxic pest control methods, adjusted their clothing to protect their skin and mouth, and reduced some exposure pathways through improved hygiene behaviour. However, toxic pesticides continued to be used and exposure to wastewater with limited protection remained widespread. Change was dependent upon: the researcher’s deep understanding of how farmers learned; farmers’ trust in the purveyors of new information; and the clarity, consistency and relevance of messages devised. Change varied with farmers’ literacy; the language used; and the way in which tools and media were interpreted culturally and technically. The health belief model provided a partial explanation for changes in perceptions and behaviour. Social, political and economic barriers preventing change included: leaving the onus for change on farmers, diminishing the responsibility of pesticide manufacturers and governments; land tenure arrangements which reduced investment in health and environment protection; urban poverty and illiteracy; and eco-system constraints. Examination of the PAR process, its leadership, owners, tools and ideas developed, and knowledge created provided useful insight into issues of power and control. | PhD | poverty, agriculture, urban, environment | 1, 2, 11, 13 |
| CHEN, CHAORAN | Restuccia, Diego | Essays on Macroeconomic Development | Economics | 2017-11 | Agricultural productivity is important for understanding international income differences. The international labor productivity differences are much larger in agriculture than in non-agriculture. Moreover, poor countries have higher agricultural employment shares. Therefore, my thesis studies why cross-country labor productivity differences are much larger in agriculture. In the first chapter, I argue that the prevalence of untitled land in poor countries lowers their agricultural productivity. Since untitled land cannot be traded across farmers, it creates land misallocation and distorts individuals' occupational choice between farming and working outside agriculture. I build a model to quantify the impact of untitled land. I find that economies with higher percentages of untitled land would have lower agricultural productivity; land titling can increase agricultural productivity by up to 82.5%. The second chapter studies agricultural productivity through technology adoption. Cross-country differences in capital intensity are larger in agriculture than in non-agriculture, reflecting differences in agricultural technology adoption. I build a model featuring technology adoption in agriculture. As the economy develops, farmers gradually replace the traditional technology with a modern technology which has higher capital intensity and higher productivity, as is observed in the U.S. historical data. For countries at different stages of development, my model can explain 1.56-fold more of agricultural productivity differences compared to a model without technology adoption. I further show that land misallocation in agriculture impedes technology adoption and magnify productivity differences. The third chapter, co-authored with Diego Restuccia and Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis, uses detailed household-level micro data from Ethiopia to study factor misallocation and its impact on agricultural productivity. We find substantial factor misallocation across farmers in agriculture. An efficient reallocation of resources can increase aggregate agricultural output and productivity by 127 percent. Land rentals substantially improve resource allocation, with market-based rentals much more effective in reducing misallocation. Exploiting regional variation in land rentals resulting from the implementation of a land certification reform, we find that more land rentals are associated with lower misallocation and higher agricultural productivity: a one percentage point higher land rental is associated with a 0.8 percentage points higher agricultural productivity. | Ph.D. | trade, agriculture, economic growth | 2, 8, 10 |
| Chen, Heyu | Yan, Ning | The Utilization of Bark and Bark Components from Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) for Polyurethane Applications | Forestry | 2020-06 | Tree bark is a renewable, largely available, and inexpensive forest residue that has desirable chemical compositions to be processed into functional extenders or value-added chemicals. However, the utilization of bark for advanced applications is limited. Herein, this thesis study explored using bark and bark components from Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) to improve performance of conventional polyurethane wood adhesives and as a starting material to synthesize novel non-isocyanate polyurethanes (NIPUs). Firstly, bark particles (particle sizes | Ph.D. | renewable | 7 |
| Chen, Jieming | Yan, Ning | Investigating Mechanical Performance and Water Absorption Behavior of Organo-nanoclay Modified Biofiber Plastic Composites | Forestry | 2013-06 | Hydrophobic Surface modification of biofibers to reduce water/moisture absorption of the biofiber or biofiber-plastic composites has attracted many researchers. In order to reduce the moisture sensitivity of kraft and mechanical pulp fibers, organo-nanoclay particles were adsorbed on the biofiber surfaces. Surface hydrophobicity, in terms of moisture absorption, water uptake, water contact angle and surface energy of the modified fibers were tested. The treated fibers had nano-scale surface roughness and substantially lower surface energy. The thermal stability of the mechanical pulp fibers increased after the nanoclay modification. The organo-nanoclay treated kraft and mechanical pulp fibers were used to make biofiber reinforced high density polyethylene (HDPE) composites. The organo-nanoclay treated kraft fibers had a more uniform dispersion in the HDPE matrix and the resulting composites had a higher Young’s modulus and thermal stability. Similar trend was observed for the mechanical pulp fiber-HDPE composites. The adhesion between the kraft fibers and matrix was greatly improved after adding maleic anhydride polyethylene (MAPE) as a compatibilizer, therefore, improvements in tensile strength, Young’s modulus, and thermal stability of both treated and untreated fiber composites were observed. However, this improvement was more significant for the composites containing the treated fibers. In addition, water absorption was decreased by incorporating the organo-nanoclay treated mechanical pulp fibers in the HDPE composites. The treated kraft fiber-HDPE-MAPE composites also showed a decrease in water absorption. The crystallization behaviors of the organo-nanoclay treated and untreated kraft fiber-HDPE composites with and without MAPE compatibilizer were studied. It was found by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis that both organo-nanoclay treated and untreated kraft fibers could act as nucleating agents. All composites crystallized much faster than the neat HDPE, while their crystallinity levels were lower. The organo-nanoclay treatment of the kraft fibers increased the nucleation rate. However, both the crystallinity level and the nucleation rate of the treated kraft fiber composites were increased by the addition of the MAPE compatibilizer. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveled that MAPE could also increase the d-spacing of the organo-nanoclay layers in the composites. When the fiber loading was 40 wt% in the composites, exfoliation of the nanoclays in the composites was observed. | PhD | water, energy | 5, 7 |
| Chen, Jin | Amza, Cristiana | Chorus: Model Kowledge Base for Perfomance Modeling in Datacenters | Computer Science | 2011-11 | Due to the imperative need to reduce the management costs, operators multiplex several concurrent applications in large datacenters. However, uncontrolled resource sharing between co-hosted applications often results in performance degradation problems, thus creating violations of service level agreements (SLAs) for service providers. Therefore, in order to meet per-application SLAs, per-application performance modeling for dynamic resource allocation in shared resource environments has recently become promising. We introduce Chorus, an interactive performance modeling framework for building application performance models incrementally and on the fly. It can be used to support complex, multi-tier resource allocation, and/or what-if performance inquiry in modern datacenters, such as Clouds. Chorus consists of (i) a declarative high-level language for providing semantic model guidelines, such as model templates, model functions, or sampling guidelines, from a sysadmin or a performance analyst, as model approximations to be learned or refined experimentally, (ii) a runtime engine for iteratively collecting experimental performance samples, validating and refining performance models. Chorus efficiently builds accurate models online, reuses and adjusts archival models over time, and combines them into an ensemble of models. We perform an experimental evaluation on a multi-tier server platform, using several industry- standard benchmarks. Our results show that Chorus is a flexible modeling framework and knowledge base for validating, extending and reusing existing models while adapting to new situations. | PhD | industr | 9 |
| Chen, Yuting | McCabe, Brenda Y. | Factors Affecting Safety Performance of Construction Workers: Safety Climate, Interpersonal Conflicts at Work, and Resilience | Civil Engineering | 2017-06 | A safety plateau in safety performance has been observed in many countries or regions. In order to continuously improve safety performance, the key is to identifying factors affecting safety performance. This research examined four factors, namely, safety climate, individual resilience (IR), interpersonal conflicts at work (ICW), and organizational resilience (OR) that may contribute to explaining safety outcomes. A self-administered survey was used. From 2013 to 2016, 1281 surveys were collected from 180 construction sites of Ontario, Canada. This thesis composed three papers, which leads to the following conclusions: • Safety climate not only affects physical safety outcomes but also employees’ job stress level. • ICW is a risk factor for safety performance. • IR has the potential to mitigate post-trauma job stress and interpersonal conflicts of construction workers. • Management commitment is the key to promoting a good safety culture. • Safety awareness is the most important individual factor affecting construction workers’ safety performance. • Team support, especially the support from coworkers, has a significant positive impact on construction worker’s safety awareness. Several original contributions were made: • This study designed and tested questions of individual resilience. • This study is the first empirical study investigating the impact of individual resilience on safety outcomes. • This study is the first study testing the antecedents of interpersonal conflicts at work and the resulting safety outcomes in the construction industry. • This study designed and tested organizational resilience questions in the context of construction industry. • This is the first study testing the mechanism about how the resilience factors interact with each other and eventually affect safety outcomes. • This study is the first study using structural equation modeling (SEM) to quantify organizational resilience. Accordingly, the following recommendations were provided: • Construction organizations need to not only monitor employees’ safety performance but also their psychological well-being. • Safety professionals may consider adding coping skill training programs to improve the individual resilience of their workforce and reduce conflict-related safety outcomes. • Construction organizations can improve employees’ safety awareness by promoting a good team-level safety culture, and by building a good reporting and learning culture. | Ph.D. | worker, industr | 8, 9 |
| Cheng, Calvin Chia-Hung | Goh, M. Cynthia | Enhanced Column Filtration for Arsenic Removal from Water: Polymer-Templated Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Immobilized on Sand via Layer-by-Layer Deposition | Chemistry | 2017-11 | Arsenic is ubiquitous in water sources around the world and is highly toxic. While precipitation and membrane filtration techniques are successfully implemented in developed cities, they are unsuitable for rural and low-resource settings lacking centralized facilities. This thesis presents the use of ultra-small iron oxide (Fe2O3) nanoparticles functionalized on sand granules for use as a house-hold scale adsorption filter. Water-stable Îą-Fe2O3 (hematite) nanoparticles ( | Ph.D. | water, rural | 6, 11 |
| Cheng, Man Chuen | Hsiung, Ping-chun||Choo, Hae Yeon | Intimate Frontiers: Chinese Marriage Migrants and Contested Belonging in Hong Kong and Taiwan | Sociology | 2018-11 | Based on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Taiwan and Hong Kong between June 2014 and July 2016, this dissertation examines the everyday regulation and negotiation of belonging at various sites of Chinese marriage migrants' personal lives, including social service encounters, domestic space of the home, and Chinese marriage migrant communities. As Chinese women married across the two politically contested borders, their post-migration lives are situated within the frontiers of intimate family lives but also historically grounded political struggles and renewed local discontent against China’s political encroachment. The struggles of belonging faced by Chinese marriage migrants illuminate the norms, values, and ideologies upheld by citizens and the states of Hong Kong and Taiwan. As Chinese marriage migrants yearn to integrate into the Hong Kong and Taiwanese societies, some Chinese marriage migrants mobilized hegemonic discourses of belonging to make meanings of their everyday lives, others contested their exclusion by redefining their identities and in the process, producing new layers of inequalities against less-privileged Chinese marriage migrants. Delving into the narratives of belonging developed in everyday interaction, this dissertation shows how national belonging is a regulated and negotiated process beyond legal categories and immigration policies. This dissertation also shows how class intersects with gender and nationality in producing differentiated regulatory practices and narratives of belonging, illuminating the contradiction and complexity of immigrant belonging in an era of global interconnection and geopolitical tension. Situating the production and negotiation of these narratives within enhanced economic integration and shifting geopolitical entanglement across the China-Hong Kong and China-Taiwan borders, this dissertation also highlights the unfortunate alignment of market logic and nationalist ideology in the formation of discursive national boundaries against immigrants at geopolitically contentious times. | Ph.D. | gender, women | 5 |
| Cheng, Terry Tien | Williams, Charmaine | “Continuing a normal life as a normal person”: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study on the Reconstruction of Self Identity of Chinese Women Within the Lived Experience of Breast Cancer Survivorship | Social Work | 2010-11 | Breast cancer incidence in Chinese women is rising in North America. However, a critical review of the empirical research reveals a clear under-representation of the breast cancer survivorship experiences of ethnic minority women, particularly those of Chinese origin. A breast cancer diagnosis not only disrupts a woman’s everyday life but also, and more importantly, her self-identity: who she was before the cancer diagnosis and who she becomes after the diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived survivorship experience of Chinese women with breast cancer, in particular the way they reconstruct their self-identity while living under the constant threat of premature mortality. A hermeneutic phenomenology was employed to illuminate the essence of the lived experience. A purposeful sample of 24 Chinese women was recruited, and audiotaped face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted in English or Mandarin. An iterative process was carried out to identify themes and interwoven them into the four existentials of lifeworld to lend structural meaning to the lived experience. The self-identity of Chinese women living with breast cancer did not fit the current combative survivor identity and narrative as represented in the North America media. Rather, a ‘quiet’, modest and practical narrative underscoring the Chinese virtues of self-reliance, endurance, and social responsibility and harmony characterized their lived experience and self-identity. They endured unexpected major life events and accepted what life offers in an effort to move on with their lives of being a normal person again. An understanding of the way Chinese women manage the impact of breast cancer and their survivorship experience will significantly contribute to building our knowledge about this minority population within the Canadian context. In turn, this understanding will support health care professionals with the development of culturally sensitive psychosocial/supportive care services to maximize adaptation and recovery. | PhD | health, women, inequality | 3, 5, 10 |
| Cheng, Vincent | George, Arhonditsis | Modeling the Climatology of Tornado Occurrence using Bayesian Inference | Geography | 2014-11 | Our mechanistic understanding of tornadic environments has significantly improved by the recent technological enhancements in the detection of tornadoes as well as the advances of numerical weather predictive modeling. Nonetheless, despite the decades of active research, prediction of tornado occurrence remains one of the most difficult problems in meteorological and climate science. In our efforts to develop predictive tools for tornado occurrence, there are a number of issues to overcome, such as the treatment of inconsistent tornado records, the consideration of suitable combination of atmospheric predictors, and the selection of appropriate resolution to accommodate the variability in time and space. In this dissertation, I address each of these topics by undertaking three empirical (statistical) modeling studies, where I examine the signature of different atmospheric factors influencing the tornado occurrence, the sampling biases in tornado observations, and the optimal spatiotemporal resolution for studying tornado occurrence. In the first study, I develop a novel Bayesian statistical framework to assess the probability of tornado occurrence in Canada, in which the sampling bias of tornado observations and the linkage between lightning climatology and tornadogenesis are considered. The results produced reasonable probability estimates of tornado occurrence for the under-sampled areas in the model domain. The same study also delineated the geographical variability in the lightning-tornado relationship across Canada. In the second study, I present a novel modeling framework to examine the relative importance of several key atmospheric variables (e.g., convective available potential energy, 0-3 km storm-relative helicity, 0-6 km bulk wind difference, 0-tropopause vertical wind shear) on tornado activity in North America. I found that the variable quantifying the updraft strength is more important during the warm season, whereas the effects of wind-related variables are more uniform across seasons. The residual variability of the same modeling framework (a reflection of the fidelity of the statistical formulation considered) is subsequently used to delineate distinct geographical patterns of tornado activity. This piece of information provides the foundation for the Bayesian hierarchical prognostic model presented in the third chapter of my dissertation. The results of the latter approach reinforce my earlier finding that the spatial variability of the annual and warm seasonal tornado occurrence is well explained by convective available potential energy and storm relative helicity alone, while vertical wind shear is better at reproducing the cool season tornado activity. The Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework offers a promising methodological tool for understanding regional tornado environments and obtaining reliable predictions in North America. | Ph.D. | weather, wind, innovation | 7, 9, 13 |
| Cheng, Xiang | Sinton, David | In-situ observation and quantification of microalgae downstream processing on a microfluidic platform | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2018-03 | Producing biofuels and bioproducts from microalgae is a promising path for low-carbon energy and products. Microalgal biomass is an attractive feedstock for the generation of carbon neutral biofuels and high-value bioproducts because of the high growth rate and lipid content of many microalgae species. Understanding the downstream processing of converting microalgal biomass to valuable products is a critical step in the biofuel industry. In this thesis, a novel microfluidic platform capable of precise control of processing parameters and providing optical access to reactions at high temperature and pressure was developed and applied to observe and quantify the biomass-to-bioproducts conversions in three distinct studies. First, for bioenergy application, hydrothermal liquefaction of microalgae was performed on this microfluidic platform monitored using fluorescence microscopy. A strong shift in the fluorescence signature from the algal slurry at 675 nm (chlorophyll peak) to a post-HTL stream at 510 nm is observed for reaction temperatures at 260°C, 280°C, 300°C and 320°C (P = 12 MPa), and occurs over a timescale on the order of 10 min. Biocrude formation and separation from the aqueous phase into immiscible droplets is directly observed and occurs over the same timescale. Second, many algal bioproduct efforts currently focus on high-value products such as astaxanthin due to the much-improved economics over producing fuels. Hydrothermal disruption of the cell wall for astaxanthin extraction from wet biomass using high temperature and pressure was demonstrated and studied using this microfluidic platform. Hydrothermal disruption at a temperature of 200 °C was shown to be highly effective, resulting in near-complete astaxanthin extraction from wet biomass - a significant improvement over traditional methods. Third, supercritical CO2 has relatively low critical temperature and pressure (31.1 °C and 7.4 MPa) is considered a greener solvent for bioactive compounds extraction. Supercritical CO2 extractions of astaxanthin with and without co-solvents (ethanol and olive oil) were performed on the microfluidic platform to study the extraction mechanism in each case. Astaxanthin extraction using ScCO2 achieved 92% recovery at 55 °C and 8 MPa applied over 15 hours. With the addition of co-solvents, ethanol and olive oil, the timescales of extraction process are reduced significantly from 15 hours to a few minutes, representing the fastest complete astaxanthin extraction at such low pressures. The direct observation of these complex reaction processes was made possible for the first time here, allowing visual characterization, fluorescence spectroscopy, and quantitative imaging of the conversion at the single-cell scale during all stages. This level of insight has simply not been possible with previous conventional reactors. Although batch reactors have advantages in, for instance, quantifying yields requiring large volumes of products, microfluidic reactors have advantages with respect to process control and visualization at cellular level - providing high resolution, real-time data on complex reactions. The innovative platform and results presented in this thesis provide new insight in the challenging area of biomass-to-bioproduct conversion, and provide insight that can inform larger scale operations. | Ph.D. | industr, energy | 7, 9 |
| Cheng, Xu Jr. | Wallace, James S. | Modeling Injection and Ignition in Direct Injection Natural Gas Engines | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2008-06 | With increasing concerns about the harmful effects of conventional liquid fossil fuel emissions, natural gas has become a very attractive alternative fuel to power prime movers and stationary energy conversion devices. This research studies the injection and ignition numerically for natural gas (mainly methane) as a fuel applied to diesel engine. Natural gas injector and glow plug ignition enhancement are two of the most technical difficulties for direct injection natural gas engine design. This thesis models the natural gas injector, and studies the characteristics of the internal flow in the injector and natural gas jet in the combustion chamber during the injection process. The poppet valve model and pintle valve model are the first reported models to simulate the natural gas injector to improve the traditional velocity and pressure boundary conditions. This thesis also successfully models the glow plug assisted natural gas ignition and combustion processes by developing a glow plug discretized model and a novel virtual gas sub-layer model. Glow plug discretized model can describe the transient heat transfer, and adequately represents the thin layers of heat penetration and the local temperature difference due to the cold gas jet impingement. The virtual gas sub-layer model considers complicated physical processes, such as chemical reaction, heat conduction, and mass diffusion within the virtual sub-layers without significantly increasing computational time and load. KIVA-3V CFD code was chosen to simulate the fluid flow. Since the KIVA-3V is designed specifically for engine research application with conventional liquid fuels, many modifications have been implemented to facilitate this research. | PhD | energy | 7 |
| Chenoweth, Meghan Jo-Ann | Tyndale, Rachel F | Sources of Variation in Nicotine Metabolism and Associations with Smoking Abstinence in Adolescents and Adults | Pharmacology | 2016-06 | Smoking remains a major public health concern; worldwide, approximately one billion people smoke. Despite the fact that many smokers are motivated to quit, only a small minority of those making quit attempts successfully quit each year. Variation in the rate of nicotine metabolic inactivation influences a number of smoking behaviours, including cessation. Thus, we sought to characterize genetic, environmental, and demographic sources of variability in the rate of nicotine metabolism, and resultant influences on smoking behaviours. Variation in the activity of the major nicotine-metabolizing enzyme, cytochrome P450 2A6 (CYP2A6) changes nicotine clearance and is associated with altered smoking behaviours, including cessation, in adults. We demonstrate here that slow (versus normal) nicotine metabolizers are more likely to achieve prolonged abstinence in adolescence, as in adulthood. We further demonstrate that in clinical trials, adult slow (versus normal) nicotine metabolizers are more likely to achieve early abstinence. We also investigated additional sources of genetic variability in the rate of nicotine metabolism and their potential influences on smoking. We demonstrate that genetic variation in an additional nicotine-metabolizing enzyme (i.e., FMO3), and a cytochrome P450 co-enzyme (i.e., POR), does not substantially alter nicotine metabolism, CYP2A6 activity, or tobacco consumption. We further demonstrate that environmental and demographic sources of variability in CYP2A6 activity, such as gender and ethnicity, explain only a small proportion of the total variation in CYP2A6 activity; however, these factors may have unique impacts on smoking behaviours and thus should be further investigated in studies of smoking. Overall, our findings provide additional information regarding the role of variation in nicotine metabolism rate in cessation outcomes in both adolescents and adults. A greater understanding of the factors that influence smoking cessation will help optimize treatment outcomes and reduce the burden of tobacco-related disease. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Cherukupally, Pavani | Park, Chul B||Bilton, Amy M | Surface Engineered Sponges Enable Oily Wastewater Remediation and Residual Oil Recovery | Mechanical and Industrial Engineering | 2019-06 | In the US, steam-¬based oil extraction processes generate over 15 billion liters of emulsified oil contaminated wastewater annually. For sustainability, these effluents need to be remediated and/or recycled. However, the complex properties (pH, dissolved salts, and high temperature) of effluents pose challenges for removal of oil microdroplets removal using current separation methods. This thesis developed a new process to selectively recover crude oil microdroplets from wastewater using inexpensive sponges. This process synergistically uses sponge surface properties and pre-existing ionic and thermal energies of the wastewater to achieve 95-99% oil removal efficacy from wastewater. First, an acid-base polymeric sponge was applied to remove crude oil microdroplets from water. In acidic or basic environments, acid-base polymers acquire surface charge due to protonation or dissociation of surface functional groups. This property is invoked to adsorb crude oil microdroplets from water using a polyester polyurethane sponge. Using the surface charge of the sponge and oil droplets, the solution pH (5.6) for 99% oil removal efficacy was predicted and verified through adsorption experiments. The droplet adsorption onto the sponge was governed by physisorption, and the driving forces were attributed to electrostatic attraction and Lifshitz-van der Waals forces. The sponge was regenerated and reused multiple times by mechanical compression. Next, to remove oil microdroplets from water at broad pH conditions, an innovative surface engineered sponge (SEnS) was designed by combining surface chemistry, surface charge, roughness, and surface energy. Under all pH conditions, the SEnS rapidly adsorbed oil microdroplets with 95-99% removal efficiency predominantly by electrostatic attraction and Lifshitz-van der Waals forces. Furthermore, at the best pH value, 92% of the oil was adsorbed within 10 min due to synergistic charge attraction. The adsorbed oil was recovered by rinsing with a diluent while the cleaned SEnS was reused multiple times for oil adsorption. Subsequently, crude oil is recovered from the diluent using distillation. Due to the process efficacy, sponge reuse, and oil recovery, this adsorptive-recovery method using sponges demonstrates great potential for the industrial oil recovery from wastewater. Furthermore, this work lays foundation for the development of new SEnS with the potential to revolutionize water treatment technologies. | Ph.D. | water, energy, recycl, industr, environment | 6, 7, 9, 13 |
| Chia, Yeow Tong | Sandwell, Ruth W. | The Loss of the 'World-Soul'? Education, Culture and the Making of the Singapore Developmental State, 1955 - 2004 | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2011-06 | This dissertation examines the role of education in the formation of the Singapore developmental state, through a historical study of education for citizenship in Singapore (1955-2004), in which I explore the interconnections between changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, and the politics of nation-building. Building on existing scholarship on education and state formation, the dissertation goes beyond the conventional notion of seeing education as providing the skilled workforce for the economy, to mapping out cultural and ideological dimensions of the role of education in the developmental state. The story of state formation through citizenship education in Singapore is essentially the history of how Singapore’s developmental state managed crises (imagined, real or engineered), and how changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, served to legitimize the state, through educating and moulding the desired “good citizen” in the interest of nation building. Underpinning these changes has been the state’s use of cultural constructs such as Confucianism and Asian values to shore up its legitimacy. State formation in Singapore has been very successful, as evidenced by its economic prosperity and education has played a key role in this success. However, the “economic growth at all costs” ethos comes, arguably, at a price – the potential loss of zeitgeist, or the loss of the “World-Soul”. Nation building in the sense of fostering a sense of rootedness and belonging to the country in its citizenry – the “World-Soul” – had to be relegated to the backburner in the relentless pursuit of economic development, in order to sustain and legitimize the developmental state. By harnessing the educational sphere for its economic growth objectives through the discourse of crisis, the developmental state gained political legitimacy in the eyes of a citizenry increasingly accustomed to educational mobility and material wealth, even if at the expense of political freedoms. | PhD | economic growth | 8 |
| Chiavaroli, Laura | Jenkins, David JA | Glycemic Index and Macrovascular Disease in Type 2 Diabetes | Nutritional Sciences | 2016-11 | Abstract The rapid rise in type 2 diabetes (T2DM) prevalence seen over the past few decades is projected to increase further, together with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Thus, there is a need to find effective and sustainable prevention and treatment strategies for diabetes, including dietary strategies. Low glycemic index (GI) diets may be suitable to assist in T2DM management; however there is a lack of evidence on long term adherence, as well as on the association with surrogate markers of CVD risk beyond traditional risk factors. Recently, advances have been made in measures of subclinical arterial disease through the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which, along with standard measures from carotid ultrasound scanning (CUS), have been associated with CVD events. To address these knowledge gaps, we conducted a randomized controlled trial in those with T2DM at high risk of CVD to assess the effect of a low GI diet over 3 years. The trial, currently ongoing, has already yielded a rich dataset allowing for the exploration of associations between dietary variables and subclinical arterial disease assessed as vessel wall volume (VWV) by MRI and carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) by CUS. The thesis objectives were to assess the association between GI and CIMT and VWV, assess whether a low GI diet can be followed successfully long term, what advice is adopted, and more specifically, whether provision of free study bread improves adherence. Baseline cross-sectional analyses did not reveal any association between GI and either CIMT or VWV. CIMT and VWV were however, significantly associated negatively with carbohydrates, starch, and dietary pulses, which are a particularly low GI food. Long term adherence to a low GI diet was demonstrated to be sustainable over 3 years at a level similar to that observed in earlier 3- and 6-month trials (an average reduction of 11 GI units) through substitutions of breads, cereals and fruit for low GI options and of potatoes and rice for dietary pulses. The provision of a free study bread, which was implemented mid-way through the trial, significantly improved adherence to low GI statistically, however not at a level physiologically significant (~1 GI unit lower). These results are the first to assess and demonstrate long term adherence to a low GI diet and to assess GI and MRI measures of macrovascular disease to assist in the understanding of the role of diet and nutrition in macrovascular disease development in T2DM. | Ph.D. | food, health | 3 |
| Chin, Andrew Tim Man | Fortin, Marie-Josée | Fish Community Responses to the Land Use Change and Environmental Variability in Estuaries | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2018-11 | Understanding how species communities respond to land use and environmental change over space and time is necessary given the rapidly changing environment that threaten species persistence. In intrinsically dynamic environments such as estuaries, the spatial and temporal environmental variability at the interface of freshwater and marine ecosystems result in species that persist with morphological or physiological adaptations to these changing environmental conditions. Yet, estuarine fish communities are facing further change as a result of the loss of functional connectivity through stream fragmentation due to culverts that impede fish passage upstream, and land use change as well as climate change among estuaries that reduce habitat quality. It is unknown how the extent of environmental change due to land use and climate change in estuaries and their associated watersheds affect estuarine fish communities in addition to natural variability. In this thesis, I determine how fish communities in estuaries respond to land use impact and environmental variability at the stream and watershed levels. The functional connectivity of species is impacted by stream fragmentation due to culverts upstream of New Brunswick estuaries and their watersheds. I show that the potential functional connectivity of species varies according to migratory traits and the ontogeny of species. In the Miramichi watershed, I assess how forest harvesting and weather fluctuations affect the density of juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) at the watershed level. I demonstrate that accounting for the upstream forest harvesting have cumulative impacts on juvenile Atlantic salmon through each catchment downstream and over time. Within and among the estuaries, I find evidence that fish communities shift according to environmental change. My findings relating to the effects of land use and environmental variability from streams to the watersheds would result in a better predictive capacity of how estuarine fish communities will potentially change or persist. | Ph.D. | water, climate, environment, marine, fish, forest, land use | 13, 14, 15 |
| Chin, Stephen | Anderson, Jason H | Architectures and Tools for Efficient Reconfigurable Computing | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2018-11 | Recent decades have seen large growth in the silicon industry with transistor scaling and transistor count approximately doubling every two years. With the continued growth of transistors-per-chip and increasing power density, dark silicon challenges have risen. Reconfigurable computing poses a possible solution to some of the challenges through improving performance and energy efficiency by tailoring the hardware to the application. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are a platform for realizing reconfigurable computing and have had traction for over a decade. Their recent introduction into mainstream data-centres bodes well for the field. Another type of reconfigurable architecture, Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Arrays (CGRAs), poses one other platform for computing. Being more specialized than FPGAs, CGRAs’ main selling point is increased efficiency versus FPGAs, at the cost of platform flexibility. This dissertation looks at efficient computing first from the perspective of FPGAs, developing new architectures and new CAD tools, making for a more efficient FPGA. The proposed FPGA architecture consists of a hybrid multiplexer / look-up-table logic block that has reduced area with respect to traditional architectures. Then, with the prospect that CGRA architectures hold, we develop an open-source framework, CGRA-ME, for the modelling and exploration of CGRAs. This unifying software framework incorporates, architecture description through a custom language, architecture modelling, application mapping, and RTL generation, and allows further development of CGRA architectures and related CAD tools throughout the research community. Within the CGRA-ME framework, a new architecture-agnostic application mapper formulated in an integer linear program was also developed for generic CGRAs. Through this dissertation, we have made headway towards more efficient reconfigurable architectures through architecture design and related CAD and are optimistic that these contributions will have positive impact on further research and industrial application of reconfigurable architectures. | Ph.D. | industr | 9 |
| Chindalo, Pannel | Bascia, Nina | How Undergraduate Students Think about Higher Education and Prepare for Employment | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2010-11 | This study explores of how university students understand the relationship between a liberal arts undergraduate degree and becoming employment-ready. The study employs a phenomenological approach. Surveys and interviews of students were conducted on the Faculty of Arts and Science students at the St. George Campus of the University of Toronto. Supplementary data were obtained from National Survey of Student Engagement. By employing Bourdieu‟s theory of practice (especially with regard to capital, habitus and field), the study reveals how students went about preparing for the labour market differed by their social class, immigration status and race. Students‟ abilities to secure skill-enhancing extracurricular activities and maintaining high GPA scores appeared related to their cultural capital. Most racialized first generation students experienced levels of difficulties in securing skill-enhancing extracurricular skill activities and maintaining high GPAs, which affected their employment readiness, clarity about occupational direction and their entry to graduate studies. New immigrant students were least aware of the extracurricular activities needed to prepare for employment. The study concludes that most liberal arts undergraduate students are not ready for employment at the completion of their studies and that social class and race may be related to their ability to make themselves employment-ready | PhD | employment, labour | 8 |
| Chiose, Simona Ruxandra | Hansen, Randall||Kopstein, Jeffrey | Voices from the margins: Interest groups and the state in Canadian and British immigration policy-making between 2000 and 2010 | Political Science | 2017-06 | Over the decade of the 2000s, governments in Canada and Britain converged in their immigration policies, increasing the ability of short-term and temporary foreign workers to enter their labour markets and restricting refugee entries. This work seeks to find an explanation for the source of these changes and tests an interest-based approach in particular. Did interest groups successfully lobby policy-makers or did politicians act autonomously in each area to implement legislation? By comparing labour and refugee policies within and across countries, it contributes to a growing stream in the political study of immigration which explicitly considers each field in relation to the other in an attempt to specify the sources of policy change. Six cases, two in labour migration and one in refugee legislation in each country, are considered. The research reveals that political actors in Westminster systems are able to set, direct and accomplish their agendas with little input from organized interests in most cases. They are further able to design policy instruments that insulate their decision-making from interest groups. The study, therefore, confirms theoretical expectations. Governments were able to respond to perceived electoral risks â including media pressure and global economic shocks â and reverse policies that interest groups had advanced. The work opens new and emergent questions about the conditions under which organized interests may participate in the making of immigration policy. It further suggests that the ability of strong states to act autonomously can create a democratic deficit that may lead to state power being unshackled from accountability, and undesirable and unexpected policy outcomes. As a result, robust mechanisms are required to allow interest groups a voice in policy processes. | Ph.D. | labour, worker | 8 |
| Chiran, George | Sawchuk, Peter | Expansive Learning in Technology Startup Organizations: An Activity-theoretical Analysis | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2019-11 | This study examines the complex, and sometimes conflicting dimensions of learning dynamics in highly innovative, rapidly transforming startup organizations, from an activity-theoretical perspective. Given the pivotal role startups play in the innovation economy, it is important to better understand these dynamics and associated tendencies in development by conceptualizing learning as both a socio-culturally mediated, collaborative and contradictory process, situated in times of rapid change. To examine these dynamic relations, the study draws upon key concepts from the Cultural Historical Activity Theoretical (CHAT) tradition, which are applied and extended to develop an expansive view of learning in startup organizations examined. The study is designed to address two overarching objectives. First, by developing a greater understanding of mediation/boundary crossing/contradiction (MBCC) dynamics in startup organizations in the process of development - area which I will demonstrate has not been effectively examined in Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) literature - this study will contribute to an understanding of conditions and relations shaping the processes inherent in distinct and divergent trajectories of tendential development in relation to knowledge creation in organizations examined. Second, central to the activity-based approach adopted in this study is a robust examination of the potential for expansive learning (PfEL) in startup work, conceived as a function of a contradiction/resolution/synthesis (CRS) dynamic, grounded empirically. Research findings provide original and valuable contributions not only to CHAT research but also to the field of IKM and adjacent domains of adult education and entrepreneurship learning, broadly conceived. It is argued that the focus on everyday work practices of startup organizations provides a foundation in understanding tendential development and learning in startup work, complementing existing approaches to conceptualizations of learning in IKM literature. | Ph.D. | innovation | 9 |
| Chishti, Maliha | Mojab, Shahrzad | Post-Conflict Afghanistan: A Post-Colonial Critique | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2014-06 | AbstractThis dissertation responds to a growing body of literature that points to a crisis in post-conflict aid interventions. These complex, costly and risky international undertakings have not only failed to produce desirable results, but have left efforts to effectively and successfully restructure post-war states and societies an elusive goal. Focusing on Afghanistan, I offer a postcolonial analysis to unmask and interrogate the underlying knowledge base and institutionalized sets of power relations that govern post-conflict reconstruction and statebuilding interventions in the country. Therefore, this study is preoccupied with not only what we in the west are doing wrong in Afghanistan, but why we are there, how we perceive ourselves and Afghans as well as the way we work and the kinds of relations that are fostered.This study argues that one can detect the continuity of a colonial worldview in modern statebuilding practices in Afghanistan. As such, interventions primarily rekindle and reassert the west's own sense of meaning and purpose in the country, ensuring that westerners, and not necessarily Afghans, are the primary beneficiaries of post-conflict interventions and that westerners are never made to feel `out of place' in Afghanistan. Interventions, therefore, construct an outwardly oriented state, responsive to the desires and needs of the international community, rather than being inwardly oriented and responsive to the needs, expectations and lived realities of the majority of Afghans. To substantiate this claim, this dissertation focuses on the concepts of colonial ambivalence and mimicry as well as terra nullius in order to unmask some of the hidden, obscure and implicit assumptions, ideas, values and relations that underpin externally facilitated interventions in Afghanistan. | Ph.D. | institution | 16 |
| Chit, Ayman | Grootendorst, Paul | Economics of Influenza Vaccine Development | Pharmaceutical Sciences | 2013-11 | In this thesis we are particularly concerned about the development of new and improved influenza vaccines with in the changing external economic environment. The thesis covers two major objectives: 1) Developing methods to estimate the costs of influenza vaccine development The ability to calculate the development costs for specific medicines and vaccines are important to inform investments in innovation. Unfortunately, the literature is predominated by non-reproducible studies only measuring aggregate level drug research and development (R&D) costs. Further, the literature appears very scant on the development costs of new vaccines. In the first objective we therefore describe methodology that improves the transparency and reproducibility of primary indication expected R&D expenditures of influenza vaccines. 2) Developing methods to focus influenza vaccine R&D towards meeting cost-effectiveness targets The second objective is focused on how to forecast evidence requirements for cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) of influenza vaccines. The guidance to manufacturers on what evidence would optimally support acceptable CEA is scant. The absence of such guidance and the increased emphasis on CEA can add significant risk to the vaccine development process. Thus we perform a Value of Information (VOI) analysis on the parameters of a cost effectiveness model designed to evaluate new influenza vaccines designed for use in elderly adults. The results of this study highlight what type of endpoints that should be studied in influenza vaccine R&D programs. From our work on these objectives we are able to shed light on economics that should be considered while developing a new influenza vaccine. Though our contribution is mainly methodological, we conclude the thesis suggesting changes in the way the vaccine industry and HTA agencies work. These changes are in our view necessary to meet society’s demand for new vaccines that deliver high value for money. | PhD | innovation, industr | 9 |
| Chiu, M. L. Teresa | Eysenbach, Gunther | Usage and Non-usage Behaviour of eHealth Services Among Chinese Canadians Caring for a Family Member with Dementia | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2008-06 | Background: Information Communication Technologies (ICT)-mediated support can reduce family caregiver burden and may bridge service gaps caused by time constraints and language or cultural barriers. (Non)-usage behaviour can be explained using Andersen’s Behavioural Model of Health Service Utilization, Venkatesh’s Unified Theory of Use and Acceptance of Technology, Eysenbach’s Law of Attrition, and Wilson’s and Chatman’s Information Behaviour Theories. Purpose: This study aimed to describe and explain (non)-usage behaviour of ehealth services among Chinese caregivers. Method: This two-phase study used a mixed methods design involving 46 Chinese caregivers who cared for a family member with dementia. Usability of the ICT tools designed in the study was tested. Phase I participants (N=28) had access to a bilingual information site and personalized email support from professionals. Phase II participants (N=18) were randomized to use one of three enhanced features. Pre- and post-intervention data were collected, and qualitative interviews were conducted. Results: The Phase I ICT tools supported the core functions without major usability issues. Perceived efforts to use the ICT-mediated services influenced the consent decisions of Phase I caregivers (p=.036). Caregivers initiated service earlier if they had a higher acceptance of the service (p=0.017). Frequent users of email support experienced a decline of perceived burden compared with an escalation of perceived burden by non-users (p=0.023). An older age, greater caregiving competence, and lower English or computer proficiency explained non-usage behaviour. Requirements were identified to enhance the Phase I ICT tools. In Phase II, a test of three enhanced features showed there was no major usability issue. The intervention study found the enhanced features did not influence email use as hypothesized. Qualitative analysis showed usage patterns were explained by caregiver needs, caregiving beliefs, personal capacity, social support, ICT factors, and style of use. Non-users preferred Chinese to English compared with users (p=0.046). Integrating the theories and empirical findings, three concepts were developed to explain (non)-usage behaviour: usage in context, usage paths, and stages of use. Conclusion: Usage and non-usage behaviour can be explained by the service needs in the caregiving context, the use of non-ICT-mediated resources, and the access barriers to Internet use. Use of ICT-based support can be beneficial to caregivers if they do not drop out of the service. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Chiu, Maria S. | Tu, Jack | Race, Ethnicity and Cardiovascular Risk: A Population-based Study in Ontario, Canada | Medical Science | 2012-06 | Background: Ethnic and immigrant groups represent a large and growing segment of the Canadian population, however, little is known about how these groups differ in their cardiovascular risk factor profiles when compared to the White population. This thesis describes three large, population-based studies examining cardiovascular risk among people of White, South Asian, Chinese and Black ethnicity living in Ontario. It was hypothesized that ethnic groups would differ significantly in their cardiovascular risk factor profiles. Methods: The study population included 154 653 White, 3364 South Asian, 3038 Chinese, and 2742 Black subjects derived from Statistics Canada’s National Population Health Survey and Canadian Community Health Surveys. In Project 1, the age- and sex-standardized prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors, heart disease, and stroke were compared across the four ethnic groups. In Project 2, the degree to which cardiovascular risk factor profiles differed between recent immigrants and long-term residents was compared across ethnic groups. In Project 3, a subsample of the study population was used to compare the ethnic-specific incidence and age at diagnosis of diabetes. We also derived ethnically appropriate body-mass index (BMI) cutoff values for obesity for assessing diabetes risk. Results: Ethnic groups living in Ontario differ strikingly in their cardiovascular risk profiles. The Chinese group had the most favourable cardiovascular risk factor profile, with 4.3% of the population reporting ≥2 major cardiovascular risk factors (i.e., smoking, obesity, diabetes, hypertension), followed by the South Asian (7.9%), White (10.1%) and Black (11.1%) groups. For all ethnic groups, cardiovascular risk factor profiles were worse among those with longer duration of residency in Canada. Nonwhite subjects developed diabetes at a higher rate, at an earlier age, and at lower ranges of BMI than White subjects. For the equivalent incidence rate of diabetes at a BMI of 30 in White subjects, the BMI cutoff value was 24, 25, and 26 in South Asian, Chinese, and Black subjects, respectively. Interpretation: These findings highlight the need for designing ethnically tailored cardiovascular disease prevention strategies and for lowering current targets for ideal body weight for nonwhite populations. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Chödrön, Gail Sherap | Poland, Blake | Inclusion without Potential: Disability and the Biopolitics of Neuro-logical Human Capital Investments | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2015-11 | Parents challenged Canada’s National Children’s Agenda (NCA)—a policy umbrella for neoliberal investments in early childhood introduced in 1999—for mobilizing a brain-focused conceptualization of child development they felt excluded children with disabilities. This conceptualization cast early brain formation as a critical developmental stage and investment phase for human capital development at the population level, assembling a linkage between brain-economy-population that I term the “neuro-logical” model. Although studies show that political efforts to invest in human capital through early childhood reproduce inequality for many, few have considered the exclusionary effects on children with disabilities. To elucidate the inclusion/exclusion of disability, I examine how developmental differences were discursively incorporated in attempts to mobilize and operationalize the neuro-logical model in policy between 1994-2011. Drawing on Lemke’s approach to Foucauldian biopolitics, I conceptualize the NCA as an effort to assemble knowledge and strategies for optimizing life at the population level, and read the neuro-logical model as a strategy to calibrate biopolitics to both emergent neuroscientific “truths” and rapid social and economic change. Using a critical interpretive, “anthropology of policy” methodology that analyzes policy as both discourse and governmental technique, I analyze the neuro-logical model through relevant documentary sources. While the NCA was rhetorically about investing in all children, it was more directly about investing in normal and normalizable brain development as a means to optimize population vitality and ensure global economic competitiveness. I develop the argument that the possibilities for including disability as a form of developmental difference were inscribed in the neuro-logical model itself. Specifically, cognitive impairments that were considered permanent were positioned as the non-normalizable remainder in the investment agenda. Framing the investment in early childhood in neuroscientific terms obscured both the discursive reproduction of disabled children’s marginality and the deflection of alternate conceptualizations of human value, child potential, and inclusion. This thesis contributes to theorizing how models of normal and normalizable child development shape the discursive incorporation of children with disabling differences, with implications for policy, theory, and practice. Ethnographically rich policy research is needed to investigate how policy models are reproduced or transformed through local implementation. | Ph.D. | equality, inequality | 5, 10 |
| Choi, Mirue | Damaren, Christopher J. | Flexible Dynamics and Attitude Control of a Square Solar Sail | Aerospace Science and Engineering | 2015-06 | This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of attitude and structural dynamics of a square solar sail. In particular, this research examines the use of corner-attached reflective vanes to control the attitude of the spacecraft. An introduction to known solar sail designs is given, then the mathematics involved in calculating solar radiation pressure forces are presented. A detailed derivation and implementation of the unconstrained nonlinear flexible structural dynamics with Finite Element Method (FEM) models are explored, with several sample simulations of published large deflection experiments used as verification measures. To simulate the inability of a thin membrane to resist compression, the sail membrane elements are augmented with a method that approximates the wrinkling and the slacking dynamics, which is followed by a simulation of another well-known experiment as a verification measure.Once the structural dynamics are established, the usage of the tip vanes is explored. Specifically, a control allocation problem formed by having two degrees of freedom for each tip vane is defined and an efficient solution to this problem is presented, allowing desired control torques to be converted to appropriate vane angles. A randomized testing mechanism is implemented to show the efficacy of this algorithm. The sail shadowing problem is explored as well, where a component of the spacecraft casts shadow upon the sail and prevents solar radiation pressure force from being produced. A method to calculate the region of shadow is presented, and two different shadowing examples are examined - due to the spacecraft bus, and due to the sail itself.Combining all of the above, an attitude control simulation of the sail model is presented. A simple PD controller combined with the control allocation scheme is used to provide the control torque for the sail, with which the spacecraft must orient towards a number of pre-specified attitude targets. Several attitude orientations are simulated, then a number of modifications to the control are explored. The controllability of the rigid and the elastic modes of the sail at different stable states is demonstrated as well, showing that the sail is controllable for all its modes in its stable state. | Ph.D. | solar | 7 |
| Choi, Stephanie Ka Yee | Rourke, Sean B. | Depression in People Living with HIV and Their Unmet Needs in Mental Health Care in Ontario: A Prospective Cohort Study | Medical Science | 2016-11 | Nearly 50% of HIV-positive patients have a history of suffering from depression. Although the condition is treatable, depression in these patients is under-recognized and under-treated, resulting in poorer clinical and quality-of-life outcomes. There are also gaps and disparities in accessing mental health care among these patients, but current evidence is limited to U.S. studies. The primary objectives of this thesis work were to: (1) establish the validity and reliability of self-report measurement instruments in identifying depression against DSM-IV criteria; (2) examine the burden of current depression and the underlying factors driving the burden; (3) estimate the rate of publicly-funded mental health service use and unmet needs for mental health care among HIV-positive patients with depression; and (4) examine the impact of depression on costly and preventable acute health services use in the Canadian health care system. A prospective cohort study was conducted by following a cohort of HIV-positive patients from October 1, 2007 to March 31, 2013 in the province of Ontario, Canada. I adopted a novel longitudinal linked data approach. Various regression models were employed for the analysis. Three self-report instruments (CES-D20, K10, and PHQ9) performed equally well and accurately when compared against DSM-IV criteria. With regards to the burden of depression, one in four HIV-positive patients was depressed. Half of depressed HIV-positive patients had a recurrent episode. In addition, there were delivery gaps in mental health care for depressed HIV-positive patientsâ one-half used mental health services and of these, one-half received minimally adequate care. Furthermore, HIV-positive patients with depression and/or substance use issues were associated with a 19â 70% elevated rate of emergency department (ED) admissions and a 17-67% elevated rate of potentially preventable ED admissions compared to those without these conditions. In sum, depression is highly prevalent in HIV-positive patients and is likely to be chronic and recurrent over time. There are delivery gaps in mental health care for depressed HIV-positive patients. More effective mental health care policies and better access to mental health care services are required to address the unmet needs of HIV-positive patients and reduce the impact of depression on their lives. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Chopra, Kevin | Levitan, Robert | Exploring the Pathophysiology of Chronic Depression: The Interplay between Depression, Cortisol Responses, and Personality | Medical Science | 2013-06 | Chronic major depressive disorder (CMDD) is a common and debilitating illness. Its pathophysiology needs further elucidation, before more effective targeted treatments can be developed for this condition. To gain a better understanding of the psychobiology of CMDD, three interconnected studies were conducted that examined the interplay between chronic depression, cortisol responses, and personality. Study 1 examined cortisol responses to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in CMDD participants (n=29) as compared to healthy controls (n=28). It was hypothesized that cortisol responses would be greater in the CMDD population. Results indicated that females with CMDD had increased cortisol output compared to female controls, a pattern consistent with the hypothesis. However, males with CMDD had decreased cortisol responses compared to male controls. These results suggest that cortisol responses to social stress are altered in those with CMDD; however, females and males experience fundamentally different changes. Study 2 examined moderating effects of personality on cortisol responses to the TSST in those with CMDD (n=51) as compared to healthy controls (n=57). It was hypothesized that higher neuroticism and/or lower extraversion would be associated with increased cortisol responses in CMDD participants. As hypothesized, lower extraversion was associated with increased cortisol reactivity in those with CMDD but not in healthy controls. However, no association was found between neuroticism and cortisol responses. These findings could support the notion that lower extraversion is a vulnerability marker for chronic depression and thus a possible target for treatment. Study 3, evaluated the cortisol awakening response (CAR) in CMDD participants (n=27) compared to healthy controls (n=30). It was hypothesized that such awakening responses would be more pronounced in the depressed population compared to controls. Contrary to expectation, no differences were found between the groups. However, lower extraversion was associated with a lower CAR in both CMDD and healthy controls, a finding that was not anticipated a priori. These interconnected studies suggest that examining relationships between depression, cortisol responses, and personality, can assist with identifying distinct psychobiological profiles in those with chronic depression. It is proposed that this strategy will improve the likelihood of developing more targeted treatments for this population. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Chowdhury, A K M Zahidur R | Kherani, Nazir P. | Facile Grown Native Oxide Based Passivation of Crystalline Silicon: A Novel Approach for Low-Temperature Synthesis of Silicon Photovoltaics | Electrical and Computer Engineering | 2013-11 | Passivation of the crystalline silicon surface is central to the attainment of high-efficiency silicon solar cells and even more so as the silicon absorber is thinned. Moreover, the current predominantly high temperature processing of thin silicon wafers gives rise to defect migration-creation and thermal stresses in a typical multi-layered photovoltaic (PV) device. The development of a simple and effective low temperature passivation scheme would aid immensely in the synthesis of next generation low-cost high-efficiency thin silicon solar cells. This research proposes, investigates and demonstrates the efficacy of a novel low-temperature passivation scheme for crystalline silicon surface which consists of a facile grown native oxide (SiOx) layer and a silicon nitride (SiNx) over layer. A systematic experimental study of the interfacial passivation quality reveals that high quality surface passivation is obtained at a saturation native oxide thickness of ~10Å. The passivation quality is uniform over a large silicon surface with a surface recombination velocity (SRV) of 8 cm/s. Recombination modelling of the interface shows that the interfacial defect density diminishes with increasing native oxide thickness while the trapped charge density is essentially unchanged. In light of the new passivation scheme, this research investigates theoretically and experimentally a legacy photovoltaic cell concept, the Back Amorphous-Crystalline silicon Heterojunction (BACH) PV device, and proposes a novel PV cell concept - the Lateral Inherently Thin (LIT) amorphous-crystalline silicon heterojunction PV device. Benchmarked theoretical studies of the devices, using Sentaurus - a device modelling code, indicate a maximum BACH cell and LIT cell efficiency of 24.4% and 23.9%, respectively, for a 100µm thick textured cSi substrate with attainable (10 cm/sec) passivation quality. BACH and LIT PV devices, integrating the new facile grown SiOx passivation scheme, were fabricated using n-type double-side polished 280µm thick (100) FZ cSi wafers. An optimal untextured cell efficiency of 16.7% and 11.6% are obtained for a 1 cm2 BACH and LIT devices, respectively, under AM1.5 solar irradiation. Development of the high quality facile grown oxide based passivation scheme, a paradigm shift relative to conventional thermal oxide passivation, paves the path for low-temperature synthesis of oxide-based high quality semiconductor devices on thin silicon - including high-efficiency silicon photovoltaics. | PhD | solar | 7 |
| Christine, McKenzie | Bonnie, Burstow | Exploring Intersectionality, Unravelling Interlocking Opresssions: Feminist Non-credit Learning Processes | Adult Education and Counselling Psychology | 2011-06 | The concepts of intersectionality and interlocking identities came out of needs raised by communities and then academics wrote about it. This dissertation examines these concepts and how these resonate with the ways that feminist educators conceptualize and facilitate non-credit learning processes with women. This research focuses on 10 differently-located feminist educators and the processes they lead that meet a range of learning goals. Specifically, this research examines the learning practices that these educators used to help women learners gain a consciousness around their identity and issues of power and oppression. I then discuss how these practices resonate with the theoretical frameworks of intersecting and interlocking oppressions. Anti-oppression, feminist informed research and feminist standpoint theories informed the research approach. The Critical Appreciative Process, which builds on the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) method, was used to explore what is working within feminist non-credit learning processes. In addition, two case studies were elaborated on in order to examine the learning practices that were particularly successful. The educators reflected on several barriers involved in bringing differently-located women together to explore and address the power dynamics associated with power and oppression. These included the defensiveness, denial and avoidance associated with acknowledging and addressing privilege. The educators also shared effective practices for addressing such barriers. Key practices included creating an environment for difficult conversations, working intergenerationally, using theoretical frameworks to deconstructing interpersonal dynamics occurring in the group and providing tools to draw on everyday experiences and challenge (inappropriate) behaviours. Additionally, specific activities for raising learners’ awareness of their own complex and multiple identities and how these identities are co-constructed through interactions with others were detailed. This study revealed the limitations of intersectionality and interlocking identities frameworks in praxis, as well as the ways in which an awareness of identity, difference and power creates an entry point for intersectional and interlocking awareness that aids feminist movements. This research makes a contribution to strengthening the praxis of feminist educators facilitating non-credit processes. Within feminist theorizing, this research also makes an important contribution in contextualizing intersectionality and interlocking identities frameworks within a range of feminist non-credit learning practices. | PhD | inclusive, women | 4, 5 |
| Christoforou, Anthea | Tarasuk, Valerie | The Determinants of Discretionary Front-of-Package Food Labelling | Nutritional Sciences | 2017-11 | The Determinants of Discretionary Front-of-Package Food Labelling Anthea Christoforou Doctor of Philosophy Department of Nutritional Sciences University of Toronto 2017 ABSTRACT Front-of-package (FOP) nutrition labelling is pervasive in Canada and occurs at the discretion of manufacturers. While there is evidence to suggest FOP labelling can impact product sales, other work has consistently demonstrated no association between the presence of a FOP reference and the nutritional quality of a product. A comprehensive examination of how manufacturers choose to engage in FOP labelling is needed to better understand the implications of this practice for consumers. Drawing on a survey of packaged foods sold in national chain retailers in Toronto the aims of this thesis were 1) to examine how the presence and nature of FOP references relate to a) level of food processing, b) product innovation (focusing on products designed as substitutes for traditional foods), and c) brand; and 2) to assess the nature of unregulated references through a systematic comparison of these references to nutrition labelling regulations. FOP nutrition references were more likely to appear on highly processed products, innovative foods and products manufactured by transnational brands, but they were less frequently displayed on products targeted to discount shoppers. A more in-depth examination of the nature of FOP material revealed a greater propensity for references highlighting ‘nutrients to limit’ (e.g., ‘trans fat free’, ‘low in sodium’) amongst highly processed products and those of transnational brands whereas innovative foods displayed a greater proportion of references which relayed information of ‘positive’ constituents (e.g., ‘good source of calcium’). Transnational brand products were more likely than other products to bear unregulated ‘natural’ references and less likely to display regulated ‘organic’ labels, potentially signalling their need to circumvent regulatory requirements that would vary across markets. Nearly a quarter of products surveyed bore unregulated nutrition references, and most of these relayed information for which regulated options exist. Taken together, the strategic distribution of FOP references observed on highly processed products, innovative products and those manufactured by transnational brands, and the myriad of unregulated text found on these products, suggest FOP labelling functions primarily as a marketing tool and point to the need for a more effective regulatory framework for nutrition communication to better support healthy food selection. | Ph.D. | consum, innovation, health, nutrition | 2, 3, 9, 12 |
| Christopoulos, John | Dacome, Lucia | Abortion in Late-Renaissance Italy | History and Philosophy of Science and Technology | 2013-06 | What did abortion mean in late-Renaissance Italy? This dissertation investigates conceptions and practices of abortion in Italy from 1550-1650. It aims to historicize abortion by recovering and joining together, from a broad base of sources, as many contemporary representations and images, points of view and voices on this subject as possible. I argue that abortion was a contentious and ambiguous event that had several meanings and that generated many seemingly inconsistent responses from ordinary individuals and institutional authorities. Abortion was a complex physical and medical event that carried heavy moral load. It was discussed in numerous contexts and had bearings on a variety of socio-historical domains. Drawing on a variety of sources, (including archival materials, legal codes and civic proclamations, works of theology, jurisprudence and medicine, letters and trial documents), and interdisciplinary in its method (utilizing the methodologies of social and cultural history, gender studies, history of ideas, the law, medicine and the body, and microhistory), this dissertation offers the first focused analysis of conceptions of abortion in the early modern period by examining meanings and practices in relation to broader social, political, medical, and religious developments in Counter-Reformation Italy. While detecting and analysing changes in institutional responses towards the practice over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this dissertation argues that culturally pervasive discourses of ambiguity and uncertainty persisted and that this shaped the way abortion was processed at the situational level. Examining the multiple and contradictory ways in which abortion was represented in various discursive contexts, this study throws light on some of the broader social, sexual, and gender imbalances that bore directly on perceptions and experiences of the female body and that shaped the ways in which institutions and individuals processed abortions. Far from being black or white, early modern Italian attitudes and responses to abortion were always complex and multifaceted. | PhD | gender | 5 |
| Chu Morrison, Jemille Lai-Yin | McDougall, Doug | Empowering Children Through a Global Education Reading Program | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2019-11 | This 19-year global education curriculum project was conducted by a Canadian researcher in solidarity with a Tanzanian women’s rights activist who requested assistance with her campaign to end the continued illegal practice of female circumcision in her village. Years of fundraising, researching and planning resulted in filling a primary school with multicultural children’s literature to be used in a daily global reading program from grades one to seven. During the seven years of teacher training and curriculum implementation workshops in Tanzania involving global education and holistic education principles, the teachers expressed their shock over the unprecedented openness and critical thinking of their students. The students developed a keen awareness of social justice issues through their daily reading and book talks. By the upper grades, the male and female students articulated their stance against female circumcision without controversy, as though it was common knowledge that this was an illegal and unacceptable practice. Additionally, the students scored top results on their graduating national exams. The intent of the project was not to improve standardized testing results of the most disadvantaged, rural students and HIV orphans. This was a positive side-effect of the transformative powers of storytelling in the lives of children who are now better equipped to think critically about illegal, harmful cultural practices. | Ph.D. | rights, justice, rural, women | 5, 11, 16 |
| Chua, Vincent Kynn Hong | Erickson, Bonnie | Social Capital and Inequality in Singapore | Sociology | 2010-11 | Written as three publishable papers, this dissertation examines the sources of several forms of social capital in Singapore, and the effects of social capital on occupational success. Using representative survey data from Singapore, these papers make several important theoretical contributions: The first paper examines how and why categorical forms of stratification such as gender and ethnicity tend to produce distinctive forms of network inequalities: for example, whereas Chinese (relative to Malays and Indians) tend to have greater access to well-educated, wealthy, Chinese and weak tie social capital (but not non-kin), men (relative to women) tend to have greater access to men, non-kin and weak ties (but not well-educated, wealthy and Chinese). The key to understanding such distinctive patterns of network inequalities (by gender and ethnicity) is to understand the distinctive ways in which gender and ethnic groups are distributed in routine organizations such as schools, paid work and voluntary associations. The second paper examines the significance of personal contacts in job searches, in the context of Singapore’s meritocratic system. I show that in certain sectors such as the state bureaucracy, social networking brings no distinct advantages as appointments are made exclusively on the basis of the credentials of the candidates. Thus, personal contacts are not always useful, especially in labour markets that rely heavily on the signalling role of academic credentials to match people to jobs. In contrast, personal contacts are more useful among less qualified job searches in the private sector. The third paper shows that while job contacts (i.e. ‘mobilized’ social capital) may not always pay off in meritocratic labour markets, ‘accessed’ social capital remains extremely important. The leveraging power of social capital in meritocratic markets is not the active mobilization of job contacts per se, but more subtly, the result of embedded social resources such as knowing many university graduates and wealthy people. Together, these papers illustrate how socio-structural factors such as meritocracy, gender and racialization form important predictors of the distribution, role and value of social capital in everyday life and labour markets. | PhD | gender, labour | 5, 8 |
| Chuang, Deng-Min | Newman, Peter Adam | The Impact of Co-occurring Psychosocial Health Conditions and Attitudinal Familism on Condomless Anal Sex among Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men (gbMSM) in Taiwan | Social Work | 2020-06 | Backgrounds: Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) constitute the majority of HIV incidence in Taiwan. To understand the social determinants of health among MSM in Taiwan, this thesis aims to examine the impact of co-occurring psychosocial health conditions (PHCs) and attitudinal familism on condomless anal sex among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in Taiwan. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was implemented using convenience sampling and distributed from July–September 2017 through collaborative partnerships with five community-based LGBTQ organizations in three metropolitan cities and two rural cities in Taiwan. Informed consent was obtained before the survey. Participants completed questions about socio-demographic characteristics, attitudinal familism, adverse childhood experiences, intimate partner violence, sexual minority stress, methamphetamine use and 14 coping strategies. HIV infection and condomless anal use were operationalized as outcome variables and analyzed using multivariable logistic regression and path analysis, controlling for socio-demographic characteristics. Results: One thousand MSM completed the online survey. Taiwanese MSM with more than one PHC had greater than twofold higher odds of being HIV-positive; those with three or more PHCs had twofold higher odds of having condomless anal sex. Positive reframing, acceptance and spiritual belief coping partially mediated the pathway from co-occurring PHCs to condomless anal sex. Spiritual belief coping partially mediated the association between co-occurring PHCs and HIV infection. The results also revealed that lower levels of attitudinal familism were associated with more co-occurring PHCs, which were, in turn, directly associated with greater use of the substance use coping strategy, which was itself directly associated with more condomless anal sex. Conclusion: The results highlight the importance of preventing co-occurring PHCs, including working to diminish exposure to violence and to reduce minority stressors among MSM in Taiwan. Taiwanese MSM living with co-occurring PHCs would benefit from trauma-informed counselling, which involves emotion-focused approaches and elements of positive reframing, acceptance and spiritual belief coping. Additionally, evidence-based research among MSM in Taiwan should further examine the effect of other coping strategies and social norms on HIV risk-taking behaviours. | Ph.D. | queer, health | 3, 5 |
| Chum, Antony | Walks, R. Alan | Socio-environmental Determinants of Cardiovascular Diseases | Geography | 2012-11 | Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death and disability around the world. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the impact of socio-environmental determinants of CVDs at the neighbourhood scale in order to inform actionable interventions, which may lead to large-scale reductions in preventable CVDs. Drawing on 2411 surveys carried out in Toronto, Canada, this thesis employs multilevel models to estimate the magnitude of socio-environmental influences on the risk of CVD while adjusting for individual-level risk factors. To advance current research methodology, strategies and innovations were developed to 1) improve the characterization of neighbourhoods by empirically testing a full range of socio-environmental influences; 2) account for non-residential exposures by including a combined analysis of work and home contexts; 3) account for variations in the duration of exposure through the use of time-weighted models; 4) deal with problem of spatial data aggregation by developing and testing a novel method of neighbourhood zone design, and 5) account for the spatial scales of different socio-environmental determinants by modeling at multiple scales. The thesis demonstrated that land use decisions are inextricably public health decisions. It found that living in neighbourhoods with inadequate access to food stores and areas for physical activity, burdened by violent crimes and fast food restaurants, and over-dependent on automobiles (leading to air pollution), with a high level of noise may significantly increase the risk of CVDs, over and above individual-level risks. The thesis also found that working in neighbourhoods that are socio-economically disadvantaged or have high-traffic may significantly increase CVD risk. The thesis developed and demonstrated novel methods to reduce the measurement error of neighbourhood exposures through 1) the use of “amoeba buffers” to improve neighbourhood zone design to better reflect participants’ local neighbourhoods and 2) the use of duration of exposure weights to adjust for individual differences in the time spent across different contexts. Finally, it found that the significance of socio-environmental factors depends on the scale of data aggregation; thus, investigation of multiple scales may be required to identify the relevant scale that matches the specific contextual factor in future research. | PhD | health, pollut, environment | 3, 13 |
| Chyzzy, Barbara | Dennis, Cindy-Lee | Mobile Phone-based Peer Support in the Prevention of Postpartum Depression Among Adolescent Mothers: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial | Nursing Science | 2019-06 | Background: Adolescent mothers are at three times greater risk for developing postpartum depression (PPD) compared to adult mothers. Lack of social support has been identified as a major risk factor for PPD among adolescent mothers. The objective of this parallel pilot randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and adherence of a mobile phone-based peer support intervention and obtain preliminary estimates of impact on clinical outcomes to inform a future definitive randomized controlled trial. Methods: Pregnant adolescents 16-24 years old were recruited from the community in Toronto, Canada and randomly allocated into either a mobile phone-based peer support intervention group or a usual care control group using sequentially numbered, opaque, sealed envelopes. Participants in the intervention group received support from a trained peer mentor by mobile phone (voice calling or text messaging) during their last trimester of pregnancy and 12 weeks postpartum. Primary outcomes measured implementation (feasibility, acceptability and adherence). Secondary outcomes measured preliminary effectiveness (depressive symptomatology, anxiety, social support and health service utilization). A research assistant blinded to group allocation collected outcome measures. Results: Forty pregnant adolescents (mean age 21.6, SD 1.8 years) were recruited (intervention n=21, control n=19). Primary outcomes: 33 participants (82.5%) completed outcome measures. A total of 121 contacts were made between participants and peer mentors, with the majority of contacts made by text message (n= 112, 92.6%). Overall, 100% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their peer support experience. Secondary outcomes: After controlling for baseline depressive symptomatology, participants in the intervention group demonstrated lower mean depression scores at 12 weeks postpartum compared to participants in the control group (F = 4.25, p = 0.048). There were no group differences in anxiety, social support or health service utlization. No adverse events were reported. Discussion: Mobile phone-based peer support may be a feasible and acceptable way to provide support to adolescents during pregnancy and in the postpartum period. Preliminary evidence suggests that the peer support intervention may be effective in preventing depressive symptomatology among adolescent mothers. A definitive randomized controlled trial with adequate sample size is warranted. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Cimon, David | Park, Andreas | Essays on Financial Market Structure | Economics | 2016-11 | In this thesis, I model three innovations in modern financial markets. First, I study conflict of interest in the relation between brokers and investors. Second, I study Exchange Traded Funds, and their impact on their constituent assets. Finally, I study crowdfunding as a means for entrepreneurs to resolve uncertainty regarding demand for their projects. Many investors do not access equity markets directly; instead they rely on a broker who receives their order and submits it to a trading venue. Brokers face a conflict of interest when the commissions they receive from investors differ from the costs imposed by different trading venues. Investors want their orders to be filled with the highest probability, while brokers choose venues in order to maximize their own profits. I construct a model of limit order trading in which brokers serve as an agent for investors who wish to access equity markets. In just over 20 years, exchange traded funds (ETFs) have gone from a new financial innovation to an industry representing over $1.3 trillion CAD in assets under management. With this rapid rise in popularity, questions naturally arise as to whether ETFs affect the markets for the underlying assets from which they are formed. In this chapter I present a static model of informed limit order book trading in which market participants trade in either cash markets or basket securities ETFs. Since its advent less than 10 years ago, crowdfunding has grown to a multi-billion dollar industry. There has been debate over whether crowdfunding has competed with or complemented traditional financing methods such as banks and venture capital. One feature of crowdfunding, is a shifting of the risk from the project from the traditional venues, to these consumers themselves. This chapter examines the role of crowdfunding in the financing process for entrepreneurs, specifically in regards to the resolution of uncertainty regarding demand for their projects. | Ph.D. | innovation, industr, financial market | 9, 10 |
| Clarke, Allyson Kathryn | Lana, Stermac | In The Eyes of The Law: Survivor Experiences and Image Construction Within Sexual Assault Cases | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2014-11 | Research has clearly documented the challenges that sexual assault survivors face within the legal system, yet little attention has been devoted to the ways in which survivors demonstrate agency during this process. The present study explored the ways in which sexual assault survivors navigate the power structures and stereotypes present within the Canadian criminal justice system, particularly during pre-trial preparatory activities and testifying experiences. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with eight adult female sexual assault survivors who testified against their assailant at a preliminary hearing or trial, as well as four service providers responsible for assisting survivors within the legal system. Data collection and analysis was informed by constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Findings showed that survivors' experiences testifying and interacting with defense attorneys were predominantly negative, while experiences with police and Crown Attorneys were comprised of both supportive and unsupportive aspects depending on the level of belief, support and commitment shown. Consistent with previous findings on survivor agency (e.g., Greeson Campbell, 2011), participants expressed agency through purposeful acts of both compliance and defiance with system expectations, depending on which course of action was deemed most beneficial in meeting personal goals for self-protection, system change or prosecution of the offender. Participants complied with system expectations through cooperation with legal personnel as well as deliberate mental, emotional, psychological and physical strategies to prepare themselves for testifying, including independent legal research, testimony rehearsal, psychological coping strategies, emotion management, and appearance modification. These activities were undertaken to increase personal confidence and comfort, as well as to construct stereotypically consistent images of ideal victimhood, enhance perceived credibility and assist in the prosecution effort. In addition, participants expressed agency through actions such as obtaining their own legal representation, protesting and resisting unfair or inappropriate treatment, and setting boundaries in their interactions with legal personnel. Findings indicate that even in the aftermath of serious trauma, survivors of sexual assault are able to take purposeful action to assess their own needs and shape their legal interactions and experiences in order to best meet their personal goals (Greeson Campbell, 2011; Konradi, 2007). | Ph.D. | justice | 16 |
| Clarke, Kathleen | Childs, Ruth A | An Investigation of the Experiences of Graduate Students with a Mental Health Condition | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2019-11 | Discussion of postsecondary students’ mental health often overlooks the graduate student population, focusing on the undergraduate student population instead. The overall purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of graduate students with mental health conditions and to examine the challenges they face and the supports they use. The study followed a sequential-explanatory approach. In Phase 1, the 2016 Canadian Reference Group data from the National College Health Assessment was used to obtain an overall understanding of Canadian graduate students’ mental health. Findings from the quantitative analyses showed significant differences between a sample of 1,461 graduate/professional students with mental health conditions and 3,291 graduate/professional students without mental health conditions. Specifically, participants with mental health conditions reported experiencing higher levels of stress and more impediments to academic performance. Additionally, participants with mental health conditions were significantly more likely to report accessing providers for mental health support and to report that they would seek mental health support in the future if they had a problem that was bothering them. For Phase 2, 38 semi-structured interviews were conducted with doctoral students in Ontario who identified as having a mental health challenge or disability. Analyses found that some participants felt their mental health condition(s) delayed their academic progress. Participants who were not considered on-track to completing their degree on-time typically reported that the comprehensive exam stage was problematic. For support, participants often disclosed mental health-related concerns to peers and supervisors in addition to seeking formal support from on- or off-campus services. Overall, the findings suggest that the experiences of graduate students with mental health challenges may differ from their peers without mental health challenges. For faculty, academic programs, departments, and student services offices, understanding such differences is important for the delivery of effective and tailored support that meets the needs of this specific population of students. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Clarke, Leroy | Wallace, John | An Investigation of the Impact of Mentoring on Students' Decisions to Pursue Professions in Medicine/Health Sciences: A Sociocultural Framework for Multicultural Science Education | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2010-11 | In the 21st Century and beyond, it is clear that science and technology will be a catalyst in strengthening economic competitiveness and fostering social cohesion. However, some minoritized students are not engaged in science or related careers in science such as medicine. This study addresses the systemic issue of equitable and accessible science education as a requisite for career acquisition such as medicine. Mentoring is presented as a sociocultural participatory activity for engaging students in science learning. The purpose of this study is to assess the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine Summer Mentorship Program (SMP) and to use the data to theorize on the mentoring phenomenon. In 1994, the SMP was established as a means of ameliorating the traditionally low participation of Aboriginal and Black students in medicine and other health sciences. For the first 10 years (1994 – 2004), 250 participants enrolled in the program. Recently, ten past mentees of the program matriculated into various medical schools (5 in the Class of 2008 at the University of Toronto, this is significant, as the norm is usually 0 or at most 2). The study utilized a qualitative approach, requiring the collection of semi-structured one-on-one interview data and an interpretive phenomenological methodology to evaluate the data. There was an increased level of school and community involvement when students returned to high school and an increased awareness of the academic and career choices available to protégés. Mentees indicated that the influence of the SMP followed them much further than the end of the summer and considered it to be an important and defining moment in their educational journey. Communication could be improved so that mentors get a sense of their own impact and for professional development. Recommendations include conducting a study more focused on the impact of the SMP on Aboriginal students who completed the program. Finally, from a theoretical perspective, further work is recommended in order to fine-tune the proposed Mentoring Oriented Teaching and Learning Strategy (MOTALS) framework that incorporates students as natives in a welcoming community of science practice rather than immigrants in a strange land of non-contextual science knowledge. | PhD | equitable | 4 |
| Classen, Lauren Stephanie | Wardlow, Holly ||Sellen, Daniel | Not "Just Staying": How Health and Development Programming is Reshaping the Past, Present and Future for Rural Youth in Malawi | Anthropology | 2013-11 | Drawing on ethnographic and visual anthropological data, this dissertation explores the anticipated and unanticipated effects of youth-targeted health and development programmes in rural Malawi. Contemporary development programmes are anticipatory in nature: they are focused on managing health, behaviour, education and social relations today in ways that are believed to open opportunities for some distant and better future. Working with rural youth who “just stay,” an idiom youth use to describe their “failure” to make progress towards desired futures, I show how discourses and ideals espoused in anticipatory programmes including human rights, education, gender and love are slippery concepts. As they percolate through this particular social, political, historical and demographic context and into the imaginaries of young people, these discourses often become something new and unexpected. In particular I show how: i) a discursive elision occurs between the rights discourse and other markers of modernity and youth take up their “right” to wear modern clothing and drink commercial alcohol, ii) selfish behaviours including alcoholism and womanising surface in boys’ self-constructions as innate tendencies rather than part of a socially produced and constantly shifting construction of masculinity, iii) audit cultures, critical to the operation of anticipatory programmes, reduce gender equality to something “countable,” which, in turn, alters programme activities, leads to performances by participants and filters into youth subjectivities, and iv) discourses on modern and “healthy” loves, free from HIV/AIDS, lead to re-arrangements in romantic relations and friendships that provide new and positive opportunities for women not always available in customary marriages. By privileging the future over the present and the past, programmes overlook numerous structural barriers to improving the lives of the youth who “just stay.” I argue that the unanticipated effects of these programmes constitute and give rise to several invisible forms of violence. On the other hand, however, some effects are generative of new and positive subjectivities and relationships that are egregiously overlooked by programmes. This ignorance prevents programmes from building upon positive effects to generate desired change and sometimes even undermines their own stated goals. | PhD | health, gender, women, equality, rural, rights | 3, 5, 11, 16 |
| Cleary, Julian | Maclaren, Virginia W. | Incorporating Waste Prevention Activities into Life Cycle Assessments of Residential Solid Waste Management Systems | Geography | 2012-06 | The four papers of this dissertation explore themes related to waste prevention, the system boundaries, functional units and scale of life cycle assessments (LCAs) of municipal solid waste (MSW) management, as well as the transparency and consistency of the application of LCA methods. The first paper is a comparative analysis of the methodological choices and transparency of 20 LCAs of MSW that were recently published in peer-reviewed journals, and includes a comparison of their midpoint level impact values using statistical indicators. The second paper proposes a conceptual model, designated WasteMAP (Waste Management And Prevention), for evaluating LCAs of MSW which incorporate waste prevention. In WasteMAP, waste prevention through dematerialization is viewed as analogous to waste treatments so long as it does not affect the functional output (product services) of MSW-generating product systems. Papers 3 and 4 comprise the WasteMAP LCA case study. Paper 3 depicts product LCAs of wine and spirit packaging (conventional, lightweight and refillable, each type generating different quantities of waste) at the scale of the individual package and the municipality. At the municipal scale, the LCAs address impacts from the wine and spirit packaging supplied in the City of Toronto, Canada in 2008, and a waste prevention scenario which substitutes lighter weight and reusable containers. The lowest endpoint level impacts out of the five container types studied were associated with refillable containers and aseptic cartons. Paper 4 addresses the Toronto MSW management system and applies the WasteMAP model to allow for the comparison, on a functionally equivalent basis, of the LCA results of a reference scenario, based on 2008 data, with a scenario incorporating six types of waste prevention activities (prevention of unaddressed advertising mail, disposable plastic bags, newspapers, lightweight and refillable wine and spirit packaging, and yard waste). The findings highlight the benefits of waste prevention, and the relative significance of the decision to account for recycled content when modelling waste prevention. The endpoint level impact assessment results using the ReCiPe and Impact 2002+ evaluation methods are in keeping with the assumption in the waste hierarchy that waste prevention has a superior environmental performance. | PhD | environment, waste, recycl | 7, 12, 13 |
| Cleaver, Shaun Robert | Nixon, Stephanie A||Polatajko, Helene J | Postcolonial Encounters with Disability: Exploring Disability and Ways Forward Together with Persons with Disabilities in Western Zambia | Rehabilitation Science | 2016-11 | The economic and epistemological dominance of the global North has outlived colonialism. This postcolonial dynamic causes impairment in the global South and renders life more difficult for persons with disabilities (PWDs). This dynamic also limits the ability of people in the global South to respond to disability. This thesis aimed to challenge the postcolonial dynamic through the development of new ways to think about disability, and what to do about it, through a North-South collaboration with a North American rehabilitation provider and two disability groups and their members in Western Zambia. This constructionist qualitative research project was informed by critical and participatory approaches to research. The participating groups included one based in an urban area and another in a rural area. A total of 81 individual members of the two groups participated. Data were generated through eight focus group discussions and 39 interviews and analyzed using thematic and reflexive analysis strategies. The participants of this research were most concerned with poverty. The strategy that they suggested to improve their situation was help, a gift or grant of material resources shared in a relationship of expected compassion. This research was complicated by power dynamics and differences between the participants and researcher with respect to priorities and ways of thinking. The complications likely impacted what people talked about and the way they talked about it. The complications also meant that this research was less collaborative than planned. This research showed that PWDs in Western Zambia had concerns, and suggested strategies to improve their situation, that were different than those that are most common in Zambia. Since the current ways of thinking about disability in Zambia are largely informed by the concerns and priorities of the global North, this research points to possible alternatives that are based in the realities of the country. | Ph.D. | poverty, urban rural | 1, 11 |
| CLEMENT, Anne | REILLY, James ||HASSANPOUR, Amir | Fallahin on Trial in Colonial Egypt: Apprehending the Peasantry through Orality, Writing, and Performance | Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations | 2012-06 | This dissertation explores the experiences of Egyptian peasants from the Delta province of Minufiyya who were tried for murder by newly created "native" or "national" courts between 1884 and 1914. Through the study of 2,000 pages of criminal files, I deconstruct how the colonial state used the modern techniques of judicial orality, writing, and performance, both to justify a series of reforms that turned the entire legal process into a parody of justice, and to develop a grand narrative that essentialized peasants as revengeful, greedy, and passionate and ultimately linked their alleged immorality to their illiteracy. Furthermore, my work sheds light on how peasants reacted to this process of moralization of the law by promoting the "honor of the brigand" through violence and poetry. Finally, by focusing on the many petitions contained in the judicial files, my dissertation provides new insight into the development of a "vernacular" culture of the law that betrays the peasants' awareness of the highly political nature of the legal process. By presenting and analyzing an untapped wealth of Egyptian archives produced by the native courts, this research not only sheds invaluable light on the workings and hence the very nature of British colonial justice in Egypt, but also represents a significant advance in the knowledge of the origins of Egypt's current legal system. On a more theoretical level, this study also constitutes an important contribution to the reflection on the subaltern subject initiated by Rosalind O'Hanlon and Talal Asad, by showing how the peasants' agency paradoxically lies in their "disempowerment." | PhD | justice | 16 |
| Cleovoulou, Yiola | Thiessen, Dennis | Examining the Complexities of Fostering Social Inclusion in Elementary Classrooms | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2010-06 | The purpose of this 1-year case study was to understand how 5 elementary school teachers in an inner-city school foster social inclusion. Through classroom observations and interviews, the study examined the variations of classroom practices the teachers used to create inclusive environments, the challenges they faced in the process, and the strategies they developed to address these challenges. How their work in the classroom interacted with the school's organizational structures was also explored. Three concepts frame the study: a broad conception of social inclusion that addresses multiple aims for creating an environment of belonging and takes students of all social identities into account; a detailed conception of the practice of social inclusion from a range of theoretical perspectives and teachers' experiences; and a situated conception of context that interrelates the classroom with the school and the community. Three dimensions of pedagogy—content-based practices, relations, and structures—are used to identify and compare principles of inclusive practice. The study portrays the interactions of daily classroom life through cross-case analysis and reveals the complex decision-making processes that teachers use to foster social inclusion. This study builds on growing scholarship in the field of social inclusion in education (Ainscow et al., 2006; Dei, 1996a; Kosnik & Beck, 2009; Kumashiro, 2002; Topping & Maloney, 2005) and on the increased interest in inclusive pedagogical practices. The in-depth portraits of the teachers’ classroom practices are compared to literature in 4 areas: citizen-based pedagogy, culture-based pedagogy, race-based pedagogy, and anti-oppression pedagogy. The teachers’ practices are analyzed in relation to 2 principles of social inclusion: connecting content to students’ lives and creating mutually supportive social spaces. The study revealed that the participants' practices were mainly associated with pedagogies based on citizenship and culture, with some connections to race-based and anti-oppression pedagogies. What differentiates this study from most other studies in this area is its detailed attention to the dynamic complexity of applying principles of social inclusion to practice. The portraits offer insights into inclusive work in classrooms that will benefit teachers, teacher educators, and researchers interested in expanding the field of social inclusion in education. | PhD | inclusive | 4 |
| Close, Angele | Stermac, Lana | Self-compassion and Recovery from Sexual Assault | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2013-11 | Despite concerted efforts to eradicate violence against women and challenge victim-blaming attitudes towards survivors of sexual assault, women continue to be sexually victimized and encounter negative and accusatory reactions by family, friends, and society at large. For many survivors, the consequences are internalizing blame and feelings of shame, which has been shown to be related to increased psychological distress, self-destructive coping mechanisms, depression, generalized anxiety, and post-traumatic stress (Arata, 1999; Davis & Breslau, 1994; Feiring, Taska, & Lewis, 2002; Frazier, 1990, 2000; Frazier & Schauben, 1994; Wyatt et al., 1990). New research in the area of self-compassion suggests that this way of self-relating can counter shame (Gilbert, 2005) and serve as a resiliency factor for coping with daily stressors (Leary, Tate, Adams, Allen, & Hancock, 2007) and contribute to well-being (Neff, 2003a). No study has yet empirically evaluated self-compassion among survivors of trauma, nor more specifically, victims of sexual assault. The present study investigated the relationships between self-compassion and various indicators of psychological health that have been associated with posttrauma adjustment. One hundred and forty-one women in North America who experienced a sexual assault in the past 5 years (aged 18 to 61, M age = 27 years) completed measures assessing trauma history (sexual trauma history, childhood trauma and stressful life experiences), posttrauma adjustment (psychological distress, negative posttraumatic cognitions, and shame), self-compassion, self-criticism, and life satisfaction. The results of the study showed that self-compassion was significantly negatively related to psychological distress, negative posttraumatic cognitions, shame and self-criticism, and was positively related to life satisfaction. Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that when controlling for earlier childhood trauma and other stressful life experiences, self-compassion was a strong and significant predictor, explaining between 19 to 42% of the variance in psychological distress, negative posttraumatic cognitions, shame, and self-criticism. Comparing groups based on severity of sexual assault revealed that women who experienced attempted rape reported significantly higher levels of self-criticism compared with women who experienced sexual coercion. These findings bolster recent studies that equate self-compassion with psychological resilience. The negative relationships revealed between self-compassion and measures reflecting posttrauma adjustment and self-criticism, along with the positive association with life satisfaction clearly demonstrate validity in the pursuit of self-compassion as an important psychological construct that may help women recover from sexual trauma. | PhD | women | 5 |
| Clune, Laurel Ann | Nelson, Sioban | When the Injured Nurse Returns to Work: An Institutional Ethnography | Nursing Science | 2011-06 | Nursing is a high risk profession for injury. A Canadian survey reports many nurses are in poor physical and emotional health; they sustain more musculoskeletal and violence related injuries than other occupational groups. In Ontario, an injury management approach called Early Return to Work (RTW) requires injured workers, including nurses, to go back to work before full recovery. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board cite this approach as beneficial to both the employer and employee. This study uses an institutional ethnographic approach to examine critically the RTW process from the standpoint of injured registered nurses. Through interviews and mapping activities with nurses, other health professionals and managers, a rendering of the social organization of hospital injury management emerges. The findings suggest that the implementation of RTW is complicated and difficult for nurses, their families and hospital employers. Injured nurses engage in significant amounts of domestic, rehabilitation and accommodation work in order to participate in the RTW process. When the returning nurse is unable to engage in full duties hospital operations become disorganized. Collective agreements and human resources procedures limit the participation of injured nurses in creative and/or new roles that could utilize their knowledge and skills. As a result, nurses are assigned to duties, which hamper them from returning to their pre-injury positions and cause their employment with the hospital to be reconsidered. The unsuccessful return of injured nurses to employment is counter to provincial retention initiatives, which seek to sustain an adequate cadre of nurses ready and able to care for the increasing health care needs of an aging population. Sites of change which could support and promote the successful return of these injured workers to nursing work are identified in this study. | PhD | health, employment, worker | 3, 8 |
| Cobb, Cameron Darcy Baxter | Ryan, James | Minoritized Parents, Special Education, and Inclusion | Theory and Policy Studies in Education | 2010-06 | While there is a large body of literature on the subject of inclusion from a student’s perspective in terms of program delivery, little has been written about how minoritized parents are included in special education processes. This critical study examines how minoritized parents – those who are at times disadvantaged because of how they are differentiated within society – are included in and/or excluded from special education in the varying circumstances associated with this process. To delve into the parameters and implementation of special education identification, placement, and program delivery, I spoke with four minoritized parents and one minoritized youth engagement worker. Additionally, I examined codified policies and regulations, in order to consider how individuals interpret and shape the enactment of this policy within school cultures. In recording and coding the stories of minoritized parents, I have found that Ontario’s system of identification, placement, and program delivery presently leads minoritized parents to experience varying degrees of inclusion and/or exclusion. These degrees may be influenced by a number of circumstances, including how knowledge, language, positioning, and philosophy are presented. As outlined in this paper, Ontario’s Ministry of Education, along with school boards across the province, may pursue a number of different change avenues, and these paths will inevitably lead to different outcomes. While some paths may lead to conflict resolution and enriched inclusion, others may intensify situations of exclusion. Any sort of policy change that sets out to transform special education identification, placement, and program delivery along an Inclusion/Exclusion, Transparency/Opaqueness continuum would ultimately have to address a variety of complications. While the two general forces of larger social context and policy complications are addressed in the concluding chapter of the paper, the specific manner in which they materialize cannot be predicted with complete accuracy. Rather than articulating a detailed set of instructions to redesign policy, I hope to generate critical reflection and discussion on the matter of transforming Ontario’s special education model. If special education inclusion is to be enriched in Ontario, change is imperative. | PhD | inclusive | 4 |
| Cohen, Sarah | Cummins, James | Making Visible the Invisible: Dual Language Teaching Practices in Monolingual Instructional Settings | Curriculum, Teaching and Learning | 2008-06 | This dissertation documents the work of two teacher collaborators who brought a focus on linguistic and cultural diversity into their literacy teaching even while teaching in English medium schools. The research was carried out during eighteen months utilizing collaborative case study methodology in conjunction with two teachers in highly multilingual and multicultural public elementary schools in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This study explores the pedagogical possibilities that are made available by teaching for transfer and highlights the resource that students’ linguistic diversity can be even when the instructional setting is monolingual. The dual language literacy pedagogies of the two teachers provide the basis for an analysis of the paths for knowledge construction and identity development that were made available for students through this work. I examine the role that teacher identity and societal influences play in enabling or constraining a redefinition of literacy for the increasingly globalized context of schools. The image of the child, of literacy and of bilingualism projected by the work of the two participating teachers shape the analysis of their identity and role definition as educators. By examining teaching practices that integrate students’ linguistic and cultural identities into the fabric of the literacy curriculum several themes are considered: (a) the role of teacher identity and choice in creating learning contexts that draw on students’ interests and prior knowledge, (b) the link between student engagement and a classroom ecology that values students’ identities and, (c) the different types of knowledge that are generated in the process of participating in the dual language literacy work. Results suggest that students were able to utilize their first language skills in the service of learning English. They also experienced a renewed motivation to extend their first language skills into the sphere of literacy as a result of its affirmation within the classroom. In the case of both first and second language development, students’ ability to engage cognitively and affectively in their literacy work was heightened by virtue of the integration of their language and culture into the curriculum. | PhD | inclusive | 4 |
| Coiner, Heather Allison | Sage, Rowan F. | The Role of Low Temperatures in Determining the Northern Range Limit of Kudzu (Pueraria montana var lobata), an Invasive Vine in North America | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | 2012-06 | Invasive non-indigenous species are among the principle drivers of global change, altering nutrient cycles, changing disturbance regimes, and generally threatening biodiversity. Climate change is widely expected to exacerbate invasions by relaxing abiotic barriers, such as low temperature, but the mechanistic evidence supporting this is limited. Here, I evaluate the hypothesis that low temperatures determine the northern range limit of kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata), an invasive Asiatic vine in North America, by assessing freezing and chilling tolerance of kudzu plants in winter, spring, summer, and fall. Kudzu was widely planted throughout the southeastern U.S. in the early 20th Century to prevent erosion. It is winter-deciduous and reproduces primarily from buds on stem nodes. In the last 40 years, kudzu has migrated northward in concert with a northward shift in the -20oC minimum winter temperature isocline, indicating that less severe winter cold is permitting northward migration. Freezing mortality during winter does not explain this correlation. Electrolyte leakage assays demonstrate that above- and belowground kudzu stems can survive to -27oC and -17oC. Insulation provided by soil and snow protects belowground stems from lethal temperatures to well north of kudzu's current range limit. Severe spring chill stops growth and photosynthesis and causes some shoot mortality, but both growth and photosynthesis recover quickly following the chill. Summer growth rates are rapid (up to 22 cm/d), responding within hours to temperature changes, and are unimpaired by nighttime lows. Photosynthesis is reduced at cool temperatures, but on cool days, kudzu leaves tend to be warmer than air temperature, so photosynthesis rates generally remain close to optimal values. In autumn, growth stops below 15oC, but leaves are retained and maintain modest photosynthetic competence until killed by frost in November. In colder climates that occur far north of kudzu's current range, reductions in the length and quality of the growing season could accumulate over time to reduce kudzu's success. There is, however, no strong evidence that low temperatures in any season will prevent kudzu from migrating throughout southern Ontario, making kudzu a good candidate for invasive species regulations. | PhD | biodiversity, climate | 13, 15 |
| Coleman, Brenda Lee | McGeer, Allison | The Role of Drinking Water as a Source of Transmission of Antimicrobial Resistant Escherichia coli | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2008-11 | Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to the treatment of infectious diseases and a leading public health concern of the 21st century. Antimicrobial resistant E. coli has been detected in many places including domestic livestock, humans, food items, surface water, and drinking water. Although the use of antibiotics is a major contributor to the emergence of resistance, the ingestion of water contaminated with antimicrobial resistant bacteria may contribute to the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in humans. Purpose: The objectives of the research were to determine the prevalence of human faecal carriage of antimicrobial resistant E. coli in people residing in southern Ontario who used private water sources and to determine whether the use of water contaminated with antimicrobial resistant E. coli was associated with human carriage of same. Method: The study population consisted of people living in Ontario households that submitted water samples from private water sources for bacteriological testing between May 2005 and September 2006. Respondents completed a questionnaire and submitted a self-collected rectal swab. Results: Antimicrobial resistant E. coli were detected in the swabs of 41% of the 699 respondents, with 28% resistant to ampicillin, 25% to tetracycline, and 24% to sulfisoxazole, and 29% that were multi-drug resistant. Subjects from households using untreated water contaminated with antimicrobial resistant E. coli were 40% more likely to carry antimicrobial resistant E. coli in their gastrointestinal system than people from households using uncontaminated water, even after adjusting for the effect of other variables. Implications: The association between the consumption of water contaminated with antimicrobial resistant E. coli and human carriage of resistant E. coli highlights the ongoing risks associated with water contamination and antimicrobial resistance in Ontario. The high rates of resistant E. coli in healthy non-institutional persons provides further rationale for public health programs to reduce antibiotic use in medicine and agriculture. | PhD | agriculture, health, water, consum | 2, 3, 6, 12 |
| Conrad, Patricia | Deber, Raisa Berlin | Do Regional Models Matter? Resource Allocation to Home Care in the Canadian Provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia & New Brunswick | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2008-06 | Proponents of Canadian health reform in the 1990s argued for regional structures, which enables budget silos to be broken down and integrated budgets to be formed. Although regionalization has been justified on the basis of its potential to increase home care resources, political science draws upon the scope of conflict theory, which instead suggests marginalized actors, such as home care, may be at risk of being cannibalized in order to safeguard the interests of more powerful actors, such as hospitals. Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, constitute a natural policy experiment. Each has made different decisions about the regionalization model implemented to restructure health care delivery. The policy question underpinning this research is: What are the implications of the different regional models chosen on the allocation of resources to home care? Provincial governments are at liberty to fund home care within the limits of their fiscal capacity and there are no federal terms and conditions which must be complied with. This policy analysis used a case comparison research design with mixed methods to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Two financial outcomes were measured: 1) per capita provincial government home care expenditures and 2) the home care share of provincial government health expenditures. Hospital data was used as a comparator. Qualitative data collected from face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with regional elite key informants supplemented the expenditure data. The findings align with the scope of conflict theory. The trade-off between central control and local autonomy has implications for these findings: 1) home care in Prince Edward Island increased it share from 1.6% to 2.2% of provincial government health spending; 2) maintaining central control over home care in Nova Scotia resulted in an increase in its share from 1.4% to 5.4%, and 3) in New Brunswick, home care share grew from 4.1% to 7.6%. Inertia and entrenchment of spending patterns was strong. Health regions did not appear to undertake resource reallocation to any great extent in either Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick. Resource reallocation did occur in Nova Scotia where the hospital share of government spending went down and was reallocated to home care and nursing homes. But, Nova Scotia is the only province of the three in which home care was not regionalized. Regional interests in maintaining existing levels of in-patient hospital beds was clearly a source of tension between the overarching policy goals formulated for health reform by the provincial governments and the local health regions. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Constantinou, Peter P. | Jones, Glen A. | Government Relations in the Post-secondary Education Sector in Ontario | Theory and Policy Studies | 2010-06 | There has been little research on the government relations function within the post-secondary education sector in Ontario. This study explores this topic by reviewing the literature and collecting data from key informants in the college, university and government sector, and those who can speak about the sector associations. The study describes how the leaders of colleges and universities in Ontario perceive and conduct government relations, both as individual institutions and as a sector, and analyzes trends and potential implications. The study utilizes a pluralist model of interest group behaviour and applied the hollow-core theory to the policy community and the findings provide compelling evidence that this theory is a useful theoretical framework for understanding the nature of this policy community. This study also provides valuable insight into the hollow-core theory of pluralism. The leadership of individual colleges and universities shares a similar understanding of government relations and engage a similar approach. Individual colleges and universities work independently to lobby for capital funding and work together through their respective associations to lobby for system-wide funding and reforms. Although the presidents of individual institutions continue to lead the government relations function, the trend in the post-secondary education sector in Ontario is to invest additional resources and time in these activities. This study is the first of its kind in Ontario and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the way leaders in the post-secondary education sector in Ontario perceive and conduct government relations. Implications of the findings are considered and recommendations are made for further research. | PhD | institution | 16 |
| Conway, Lauryn | Smith, Mary Lou||Widjaja, Elysa | Health-related Quality of Life in Children with Drug Resistant Epilepsy: A Focus on Risk Factors, Measurement, and Surgical Outcomes | Psychology | 2019-11 | Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is recognized as the most important outcome of any chronic health condition. Despite growing empirical interest in HRQOL outcomes, important knowledge gaps undermine the burgeoning literature, compromising the translation of findings to clinical care for children with drug resistant epilepsy. In response, this dissertation presents a comprehensive investigation of HRQOL in children with drug resistant epilepsy through three integrated objectives: (1) fine-tune the existing arsenal of HRQOL measures in pediatric epilepsy; (2) identify risk factors for HRQOL in children with drug resistant epilepsy; and (3) examine the influence of low intellectual ability on post-surgical change in HRQOL. Studies 1 and 2 examined HRQOL assessment in children with drug resistant epilepsy across research and clinical settings. Study 1 extended the validity of the Quality of Life in Childhood Epilepsy Questionnaire (QOLCE-55) to children with drug resistant epilepsy, including confirmation of the higher order factor structure; the findings contribute to the robust psychometric profile of the QOLCE-55 as a reliable and valid measure. Study 2 demonstrated promising evidence regarding the psychometric properties of a global measure of quality of life (QOL), a potentially useful tool that can be used by clinicians to evaluate the impact of treatment outcomes in children with drug resistant epilepsy. Study 3 investigated correlates of HRQOL in children with drug resistant epilepsy, finding that lower child IQ, fewer resources available to aid families and caregiver unemployment were uniquely associated with diminished HRQOL. These results highlight the dominant effect of psychosocial factors on child HRQOL, relative to epilepsy-related variables. Lastly, Study 4 assessed change in HRQOL after epilepsy surgery, with a focus on the role of intellectual ability. Our results suggest that children with low intellectual ability can expect to achieve similar post-operative improvements in HRQOL compared to those with normal intelligence. In sum, the four studies included in this dissertation address and overcome many gaps in the literature on pediatric epilepsy and HRQOL. This body of work provides necessary and novel evidence with the potential to improve prognostication, inform presurgical counselling, and identify targets for therapeutic interventions in children with drug resistant epilepsy. | Ph.D. | health | 3 |
| Cook, Charlene | Fuller-Thomson, Esme | Challenging the Behavioural Model: Exploring Individual, Interpersonal, and Structural Predictors of Adolescent Dual Protection Use | Social Work | 2009-11 | The optimal model to support adolescent sexual health is the concurrent use of hormonal birth control and condoms. This dual protection approach prioritizes protection against unplanned pregnancy as well as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In order to explore individual, interpersonal and structural factors that influence adolescent protection use, multivariate Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) analysis was completed with a national sample of adolescents (n=2320) from the 2002 Canadian Youth, Sexual Health, and HIV/AIDS Study. CHAID is a decision tree method which assesses interactions between significant independent variables to optimize prediction of the dependent variable (i.e. safer-sex protection method). Among adolescent females, the following factors were associated with dual protection use: high condom intentions; having lived with both biological parents; having accessed a medical professional or media as the primary source of HIV/AIDS information; having utilized a medical professional as the primary source of sexual health information; having never had unwanted sex; having not consumed alcohol and/or drugs before sex; frequent sexual activity; having identified a medical professional as the primary source of STD advice; having been tested for STDs; and having supported the importance of talking about condoms with a partner. Among adolescent males, dual protection was associated with: high condom intentions; frequent sexual activity; the belief that both partners are responsible for condom use; having been born in Canada; having noted uncertain or high levels of religiosity; having been older than 14 at first sexual intercourse; having been able to speak with their father about sex; having accessed a medical professional or media as the primary source of HIV/AIDS information; and having reported a peer group that did not use tobacco. The results indicate that structural factors, in concert with individual and interpersonal factors, play a vital role in understanding adolescent safer-sex practices. Policy and practice implications include revisions to sexual health curricula, sexual health service accessibility for all adolescents, and targeted prevention programming for adolescents at highest risk. Further research into the sexual health of male adolescents and the influence of structural factors on sexual health among diverse samples should be prioritized. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Cook, Steven | Tanner, Julian | Taking It To The Streets: A Comparative Analysis Of Violent Victimization, The Victim-Offender Overlap, And The Victim-Fear Relationship Among School And Street-Involved Youth In Toronto | Sociology | 2017-03 | Research on violent victimization among youth has received a considerable amount of academic attention in recent years; however, this research has typically been conducted separately for conventional populations of school-based youth and at-risk populations of street-involved youth. Although it is generally assumed that the rates of violent victimization are higher among the street-involved youth, to date, research has yet to undertake a comprehensive and comparative analysis of these two populations. Without this research, the presumed differences between these two populations will remain untested, and an analysis of how the mechanisms operate similarly and differently between these two populations will remain largely unexplored. This dissertation project addresses this gap in the literature by undertaking a comparative analysis of violent victimization, the victim-offender overlap, and the victim-fear relationship among a comparable sample of school-based youth and street-involved youth. In general, the findings from this dissertation reveal that the street-involved youth are violently victimized at much greater rates than the school-based youth, and these differences cannot be explained away by the social-situational factors that are more abundant among the street-involved youth. While the factors predicting the victim-offender overlap appear to follow a similar pattern for both the school and street youth, the dangerous social context of life on the streets creates an environment where violence and victimization frequently co-occur. These high rates of violent victimization do not directly translate into a higher level of fearfulness of crime, however, as the street-involved youth report being less fearful on average than do the school-based youth. These results suggest that fearlessness may be a learned adaptation among the street-involved youth to survive life on the streets. | Ph.D. | well being | 3 |
| Cooke, Jason Arthur | Farish, Matthew ||Prudham, William S | The Fossil Fueled Metropolis: Los Angeles and the Emergence of Oil-based Energy in North America, 1865-1930 | Geography | 2014-06 | Beginning with coal in the nineteenth century, the mass production and intensive consumption of fossil fuel energy fundamentally changed patterns of urban and industrial development in North America. Focusing on the metropolitan development of Los Angeles, this dissertation examines how the emergence of oil-based capitalism in the first three decades of the twentieth century was sustained and made increasingly resilient through the production of urban and industrial space. In a region where coal was scarce, the development of oil-based energy was predicated on long-term investments into conversion technologies, storage systems and distribution networks that facilitated the efficient and economical flow of liquefied fossil fuel. In this dissertation, I argue that the historical and geographical significance of the Southern California petroleum industry is derived from how its distinctive market expansion in the first three decades of the twentieth century helped establish the dominance of oil-based energy as the primary fuel for transportation in capitalist society. In North America, the origins of oil-based capitalism can be traced to the turn of the twentieth century when California was the largest oil-producing economy in the United States and Los Angeles was the fastest growing metropolitan region. This dissertation traces how Los Angeles became the first city in North America where oil became a formative element of urban and industrial development: not only as fuel for transportation, but also in the infrastructures, landscapes and networks that sustain a critical dependence on oil-based energy. With a distinctive metropolitan geography, decentralized and automobile-dependent, Los Angeles became the first oil-based city in North America and thus provides an ideal case study for examining the regional dynamics of energy transition, establishment and dependence. Interwoven with the production of urban and industrial space, oil remains the primary fuel that sustains the capitalist mode of production. | Ph.D. | production, urban, industr, energy, infrastructure | 7, 9, 11, 12 |
| Coombs, Michelle | Mirchandani, Kiran | Women, Learning, and Charitable Leadership in Canada | Leadership, Higher and Adult Education | 2018-06 | This thesis explores how female charitable-sector leaders draw on dominant discourses and how they counter them in their talk about leadership and learning. Drawing on rich narratives coming out of female leaders’ interviews, I demonstrate how gender and identities are constructed through dominant discourses drawing on feminist post-structuralism and intersectionality theory. This inquiry uses a transdisciplinary discursive approach combining Critical Discourse analysis (CDA), Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA), and Discursive Psychology (DP). Drawing on these approaches ensures that gender remains at the forefront, that a connection occurs between societal discourses and day-to-day talk, and that the research attends to how subjectivities are created through talk. The intention is fourfold. First, this research aims for a greater understanding of how present masculine constructions of leadership are manifest in charitable organizational leaders’ talk. Second, it explores how such masculine leadership ideals are negotiated and challenged. It identifies how these discourses occur and create points of tension or ideological dilemmas. Third, it investigates moments where dominant discourses are contested in talk. Finally, this research considers how learning is implicated in these processes. The findings demonstrate, first, that women are positioned through dominant discourses of leadership, gender, and difference, and that this places them as something “other” than a leader. Dominant discourses, though they circulate broadly, penetrate the non-profit sector contextually. Second, the findings establish that charitable-sector leaders negotiate and challenge dominant discourses. Third, the findings demonstrate that women contest these notions through discursive mechanisms, including naming dominant discourses, using non-damaging discourses, and rediscursivization. The contestation of dominant discourses also occurs contextually and, sometimes, in contradictory ways and works to challenge the status quo. Fourth, learning is embedded in discourse resulting in women learning in and through dominant discourses as they lead. This research contributes to the understanding of how dominant masculine rationality is learned and perpetuated in leaders’ talk, as well as how it is challenged. This, in turn, provides new methodological tools and discursive approaches to research and the practice of social change work not only in the non-profit sector but also in leadership learning and social policy development. | Ph.D. | gender, women | 5 |
| Coons, Ginger | Ratto, Matt | Something for Everyone: Using Digital Methods to Make Physical Goods | Information Studies | 2016-06 | In this dissertation I draw a link between the purported changes being wrought on society by the adoption of digital production technologies and previous waves of technological change in the production of goods. I use two case studies to provide detailed accounts of methods of production and development which use digital fabrication technologies to negotiate relationships between individuals and standards. The first case study, a collaborative Free/Libre Open Source Software development project, represents a kind of digital production which creates digital goods. The second case study looks at the digitally-aided fabrication of a physical good: 3D-printed sockets for prosthetic legs. I further argue that we need new frameworks for studying the intersection of the digital and the physical, or the inextricability of the two concepts. Scrutinizing the way mass methods of production almost always account for the needs of some kind of normative user, resulting in mis-fit for non-standard users, I then question arguments about mass-customization as a solution to mis-fit. One of the contentions I advance in this dissertation is that positioning mass production as necessarily harmful and marginalizing, while seeing mass customization as a solution, creates a counter-productive dichotomy. In service of that argument, I draw on historical work about a pre-digital custom industry: dressmakers in the pre- and early-Industrial period. Finally, I trouble the role of the user in production, and contend that, increasingly, the distinction is not between who is a user or a producer, but in which circumstances, and when, one is acting in the role of the user or producer. | Ph.D. | production | 12 |
| Corna, Laurie Marie | McDonough, Peggy | Gender, the State and a Lifetime of Experience: Understanding Health Inequality among Older Adults in Britain | Dalla Lana School of Public Health | 2011-11 | There is a well-established relationship between socioeconomic position (SEP) and health among older adults, but a short-coming of existing research is its failure to link the SEP-health relationship in later life to the gendered histories of work and family life, or the policy contexts in which these histories unfold. Drawing on the life course perspective and welfare state theory, this research investigates: the dominant patterns of labour market and family experiences over the life course for current cohorts of older adults in Britain; whether health dynamics among older adults vary by gender and life course experiences; and whether SEP and social roles at age 65 mediate these relationships. The data come from a sample of individuals born between 1927 and 1940 participating in the British Household Panel Survey (N=1552). I first examined life course experiences in the labour market and the family from young adulthood to retirement age using a two-stage latent class analysis. Theoretical considerations, along with indices of model fit, suggested that four latent life paths broadly characterized the experiences of the older adults in this sample. Consistent with the social policy context in Britain in the post-World War II years, I found evidence of distinct gender patterns in role configurations at various points across the life course and in the life pathways that link these experiences over time. In the second part of the analysis, I assessed health dynamics using latent growth curve models. Only mental health dynamics were patterned by life course histories, and SEP at age 65 mediated part of this relationship. The life course histories did not have an independent influence on trajectories of chronic health problems or self-assessed health. These findings are considered in the context of our current understanding of health dynamics among older adults, including gender differences and their relationship to SEP. | PhD | socioeconomic, health, gender | 1, 3, 2005 |
| Cornelson, Kirsten | Benjamin, Dwayne | Social interactions and racial inequality | Economics | 2017-11 | A large body of evidence suggests that social interactions causally influence individuals' economic decisions (e.g. Duo and Saez, 2003; Bayer, Ross and Topa, 2008; Dahl, Loken and Mogstad, 2014). This finding implies that differences in the social environment faced by members of different races â in particular, differences in social norms and in the characteristics of social networks - may help perpetuate racial inequality. In this dissertation, I present two papers that attempt to understand how these differences in the social environment are created and reinforced. In the first chapter, I assess the influence of media role models on black educational attainment by examining the impact of a popular 1980's sitcom: The Cosby Show. The show portrayed an upper-middle class black family, and frequently emphasized the importance of a college education. If role model effects exist, young black people should have responded more strongly to this message. I test this hypothesis by relating educational attainment to city-level Cosby ratings, using Thursday NBA games and very warm Thursdays as instruments. I find that Cosby increased years of education by 0.2-5.0% among black youth, but had no effect on white youth. In the second chapter, I examine a determinant of social segregation by race in the United States: physical distance. Because U.S. cities are highly segregated, the time cost of interacting with a member of another race is typically higher than the cost of interacting with a same-race friend. My goal in this chapter is to quantitatively assess the importance of this channel in explaining why people typically interact with members of their own race. I argue that the causal effect of distance on social interactions is captured by consumers' distaste for travel. Based on external estimates of this parameter, I simulate the frequency of cross-racial interactions that would occur if only distance mattered in determining individuals' choice of interaction partners. I compare the simulation results to a new measure of the actual frequency of inter-racial interactions based on Flickr photographs. I estimate that 25-30% of social segregation for whites in the U.S. is attributable to physical distance alone. | Ph.D. | equality, inequality, gender, cities | 5, 10, 11 |
| Correia, Kevin | Mahadevan, Radhakrishnan | Reconstructing the Evolution of Xylose Fermentation in Scheffersomyces Stipitis | Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry | 2019-06 | Lignocellulose is a renewable feedstock that can be fermented to biofuels and biochemicals, but its use is limited by several techno-economic challenges, including xylose fermentation. Scheffersomyces stipitis has been identified as an efficient xylose fermenter, but does not ferment well in industrial conditions. The scientific community has been engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the preferred yeast for industrial biotechnology, to ferment xylose to ethanol with the xylose reductase (XR)-xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH) genes from Sch. stipitis for 30 years; however, recombinant Sac. cerevisiae's titres, rates, and yields for ethanol from xylose lags Sch. stipitis. This performance gap may be due to aspects of Sac. cerevisiae's metabolism that hinders xylose fermentation, aspects of Sch. stipitis' metabolism that enables xylose fermentation, or a combination of both. The focus of this thesis is to improve our understanding of budding yeast metabolism beyond Sac. cerevisiae, and ultimately reverse engineer how Sch. stipitis' metabolism has evolved to ferment xylose to ethanol efficiently with improved genome annotations and metabolic modelling. To obtain higher-quality genome annotations, ortholog groups in 33 yeasts and fungi spanning 600 million years in Dikarya were predicted using OrthoMCL. Over 500 enzyme families were curated with phylogenetic reconstruction to resolve inconsistencies. These ortholog assignments are more accurate than existing ortholog databases, and span diverse yeasts. Next, the gains and losses of metabolic genes were reviewed to identify important and reoccurring events in the evolution of metabolism in budding yeasts. Duplications were found to play an important role in the evolution of metabolism, including changes in enzyme cofactor preference and localization. The curated pan-genome and functional annotations were used to reconstruct genome-scale metabolic networks of the 33 species; the reconstructions have more genomic and metabolic coverage than those made with previous methods. Finally, the Sch. stipitis metabolic network was used to simulate xylose fermentation. NADH kinase and NADP phosphatase (NADPase), an orphan enzyme in eukaryotes, were found to be critical to xylose fermentation in these metabolic flux simulations. Pho3.2p was the sole NADPase candidate showing expression during xylose fermentation; its activity was confirmed in vitro. Xylose fermentation evolved in the Scheffersomyces-Spathaspora clade following genes duplications for XR and an acid phosphatase. This thesis provides a foundation for unravelling how metabolism has evolved in the yeast pan-genome. | Ph.D. | industr | 9 |
| Cortinois, Andrea Angelo Maria | Jadad, Alejandro R. | Supporting Recent Immigrants in their Effort to Access Information on Health and Health-related Services: The Case Of 211 Toronto | Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | 2008-11 | The objectives of this thesis are to: 1) obtain a snapshot of callers of 211 Toronto, a free information and referral service, understanding how representative they are of Toronto’s general population; 2) understand how 211 Toronto callers seeking health-related information use the information they obtain when contacting the service and their overall level of satisfaction, and; 3) better understand the experience and information needs of recent immigrants struggling to navigate an unfamiliar health care system. The study had three phases: 1) a cross-sectional phone interview with 211 Toronto callers; 2) a follow-up phone interview of 211 Toronto callers who had asked health-related questions; and, 3) qualitative interviews with callers who were Spanish speakers from Latin American countries. Participants were randomly selected adult callers living within the boundaries of Toronto’s Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Respondents were compared with the general adult population living in Toronto’s CMA, using 2001 Census data, to identify under- or overrepresented population groups. A sub-set of callers who had asked health-related questions was followed up to understand how they had used the information received and their level of satisfaction with the service. Qualitative interviews were conducted with callers who were recent immigrants and native Spanish speakers from Latin America to explore their post-migration experiences. Recent immigrants experience significant information challenges. Health-related questions reflect the multifaceted nature of the concept of health in the experience of users. Negative experiences with the health care system are common. Recent immigrants have access to disorganized, confusing, often poor quality information. 211 Toronto represents an efficient and effective way to gain access to information but does not achieve its full potential. Newcomers should receive timely, appropriate, and reliable information on existing health and health-related services as soon as possible after they relocate to Canada. Appropriate information should also be made available to potential immigrants in their countries of origin. Information and communication technologies should be used to support newcomers, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of services such as 211 Toronto. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Coskun, Devrim | Kronzucker, Herbert J | On the Roles of Membrane Channels in Plant Mineral Nutrition and Toxicity | Cell and Systems Biology | 2016-11 | The study of plant mineral nutrition and toxicity has made major strides recently, particularly at the level of molecular genetics. Arguably, however, this has been at the expense of “classical” physiology, which is of concern because critical physiological examinations of cellular and molecular models in planta are needed if extrapolations of these models to “real-world” (field-level) conditions are to be made. This is particularly urgent in the face of increasing environmental degradation and global food demands. To this end, the preset work explores the physiological role of membrane channels in higher-plant nutrition and toxicology, building upon foundational work in nutritional physiology and applying the important new discoveries in the areas of molecular-genetics and electrophysiology. Combining radioisotopic (42K+ and 13NH3/13NH4+) flux kinetics and compartmentation analyses with techniques in electrophysiology, mutant analysis, gas exchange, fluorescence imaging and tracing, and tissue mineral-content analysis, this work investigates the involvement of inward- and outward-rectifying Shaker-like K+ channels (KIR and KOR, respectively), nonselective cation channels (NSCCs), and aquaporins (AQPs), in K+ and NH3/NH4+ transport under conditions of both stress (low K+, salinity, and ammonium toxicity) and non-stress, in the intact plant. Efflux analyses showed that KOR channels mediate K+ efflux in barley roots only at low external [K+] ( | Ph.D. | food, environment | 1, 13 |
| Costa, Iara Regina Da | Moodley, Roy | Being Brazilian, Becoming Canadian: Acculturation Strategies, Quality of Life, Negative Affect, and Well-being in a Sample of Brazilian Immigrants Living in the Greater Toronto Area | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2014-06 | Acculturation is a predominant feature of today’s society and one that has unique implications for immigrants’ mental health. Given that two thirds of Canada’s population growth is due to immigration, understanding the effects of acculturation on newcomers should be a central focus of academic research. The present study utilized an exploratory quantitative method to investigate the associations between acculturation strategies, quality of life, and negative affect in a sample of 180 Brazilian immigrants living in the Greater Toronto Area. The mediating and moderating roles of quality of life (QOL) were explored, as well as which patterns of acculturation strategies were associated with enhanced well-being, represented by low negative affect (NA), high QOL, and high Satisfaction with Life in Canada (SLCI). Clusters analysis identified patterns of acculturation strategy use, resulting in four acculturation profiles: integrated, assimilated, separated, and marginalized. Results indicated that QOL did not act as either a mediator or moderator of the relationship between acculturation profiles and NA. With regard to well-being indicators, acculturation profiles successfully predicted NA and SLCI, with the Assimilated being the most favourable profile evidenced by its lowest NA and highest SLCI levels. While acculturation profiles did not predict QOL, the trend of the Assimilated profile being predictive of favourable well-being was also present as its members reported slightly higher QOL than their counterparts from other profiles. Well-being risk and protective factors are presented. The results highlight the importance of including control variables in future research in order to uncover the unique impact of acculturation on the mental health of immigrants. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed. | PhD | health | 3 |
| Cote, Isabelle Lucie | Bertrand, Jacques | Unsettling Migrants? The Impact of Internal Migration on Sons of the Soil Conflict in China and Indonesia | Political Science | 2014 | Recent instances of large-scale inter-provincial migration have resulted in open clashes between indigenous populations and migrants--i.e., `Sons of the Soil' (SoS) conflict--in several minority regions around the world. Yet, equally large population movements have been peacefully integrated elsewhere. Under what conditions does internal migration lead to SoS conflicts? Based on quantitative population data and over 100 interviews conducted in nine months of fieldwork in China and in Indonesia, I argue that large and consistent socio-economic and political Horizontal Inequalities (HIs) between migrants and locals is a key condition explaining why some minority regions erupt in SoS conflicts while others remain relatively quiet. Fearing demographically-induced socio-economic and political marginalization, local communities resort to violence against migrants when the latter appear to benefit disproportionately from their relocation at the expense of the local population -i.e. when they are "dominant migrants" with close connection to the State and its dominant ethnicity. However, any single dimension of HIs is unlikely to result in SoS conflict independently. It is the coalescing of various mutually-reinforcing HIs that render the situation most explosive. Yet, local people do not always act on these grievances and mobilize against migration. A favourable institutional context is necessary for migration-related tensions to transform into SoS conflicts. Alongside HIs, I contend that political liberalization influences the likelihood, frequency and intensity of SoS conflicts, as it affects internal migratory patterns and local people's abilities to organize or mobilize against migrants. As political liberalization also contributes to socio-economic and political inequalities between migrants and locals, it simultaneously tilts the balance of power between groups. By analyzing the different migration trajectories and how they relate to SoS conflict, this dissertation highlights the conditions transforming the otherwise peaceful internal migration into a violent process. The empirically-informed model herein developed puts migrant/local relations squarely at the center of our analysis, providing a more nuanced and disaggregated analysis of the different dimensions of their relations. While the empirical focus is on migration-conflict dynamics in China and Indonesia, the model developed provides important insights for countries with large-scale internal migration to minority regions. | Ph.D. | peace | 16 |
| Cottrell, Barbara | Simpson, Andre | Towards an Understanding of Dissolved Organic Matter Molecular Composition and Reactivity in the Environment | Chemistry | 2013-11 | Dissolved organic matter (DOM), one of the most complex naturally occurring mixtures, plays a central role in the biogeochemistry and the photochemistry of natural waters. A complete understanding of the environmental role of DOM will come only from the elucidation of the relationship between its structure and function. This thesis presents new work on the separation, characterization, and reactivity of DOM in rainwater, freshwater, and seawater. A new separation technique based on counterbalance capillary electrophoresis was developed for the separation of Suwannee River NOM. A comparative study of the organic content of rainwater was accomplished using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) with spectral database matching ,Fourier transform ion cyclotron mass spectrometry (FT-ICR-MS), and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC-TOFMS). Three complementary, non-overlapping datasets identified of over 400 compounds. Analysis of the FT-ICR-MS data using van Krevelen diagrams and the carbon oxidation state showed variation in the elemental composition and molecular size. Over 50% of the compounds identified in this study were known components of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) and volatile organic carbon (VOCs). Dissolved organic matter (DOM) plays a central role in the photochemistry of natural waters through the production of reactive oxygen species and the triplet excited state of DOM (3DOM*). These reactive species are central to the reactivity, transport, and fate of both natural and anthropogenic chemicals in the environment. Laser flash photolysis (LFP) was used to demonstrate that particulate organic matter (POM) generates a triplet excited state species (3POM*). LFP of seawater from the Pacific Ocean and the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series Station detected similar excited state species from surface to 4535m. Metal speciation has been implicated in the photochemistry of natural waters. Copper immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) of seawater and freshwater isolated a low and a high affinity fraction that generated excited state transients. Excitation-emission matrix spectroscopy showed that while the seawater fractions were autochthonous, freshwater fractions enriched in chromophoric DOM (CDOM), were allochthonous. The discovery of these different classes of compounds in freshwater and seawater has important implications both for the mineralization of DOM and the removal of xenobiotics in the aquatic environment. | PhD | water, production, environment | 6, 12, 13 |
| Coulthard, Catherine Elizabeth | Cummins, James | Finding the Voice of the Early Author: The Impact of a Self-Authoring Program Among First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Preschool Children and Families | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2017-11 | This study examined the impacts of implementing a self-authored, dual language identity text program into an existing Aboriginal Head Start preschool program. First Nation, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) preschool children and families, and educators were co-researchers in the blended Indigenous influenced, participatory action research study which spanned a one-year school timeline and research phase. This study includes an autoethnographic account of a non-FNMI, or a settler author’s personal journey of consciousness and understandings related to surfacing issues of a non-FNMI person doing research with FNMI peoples. The study was underpinned by theoretical frameworks centred on valuing the interconnectedness of the familial and contextual environment of children. Moreover, this research embraces the notion that knowledge is socially constructed to create meaningful change. With this in mind, the study was framed to acknowledge the children’s participatory contributions to the study, guided by Indigenous knowledge and Collaborative Frameworks (2012), Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1968), the Academic Expertise, and Societal Power Relations Empowerment (Cummins, 2001), and Cummins’ and Early’s Literacy Engagement framework (Cummins Early, 2011). Through cyclical reflective practices, the co-researchers in this study found suggestive evidence of the positive impacts of the project for the children, their families, the staff, and the original author with regards to sense-of-self and cultural identity. This study can inform practice in early childhood education, specifically with respect to the provision of culturally relevant educational resources and programming for FNMI children. | Ph.D. | inclusive | 4 |
| Couperthwaite, Michelle Zoe Lisa | Goldstein, Abby | Relationship Satisfaction among Individuals of Diverse Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities: The Role of Love and Attachment Styles | Applied Psychology and Human Development | 2014-06 | Empirical research on relationship satisfaction emerged and is largely situated within a cisgender heteronormative context. This study examines the application of various established relationship measures to diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. The objectives of this study are (a) to explore the factor structures and internal reliabilities of various well-validated adult intimate relationship measures of love styles (Love Attitudes Scale, Short Form; LAS-SF), relationship-specific attachment (Experiences in Close Relationships Scale - Relationship Structures; ECR-RS), sexuality (Sexual Relationship Scale; SRS), and relationship satisfaction (Relationship Assessment Scale; RAS) to determine their viability with a diverse and inclusive sample; and (b) to examine the relative abilities of love and attachment styles to predict relationship satisfaction among sexual orientation minority and trans-spectrum adults. Online survey data ( | Ph.D. | gender | 5 |
| Cour, Lykke de la | Iacovetta, Franca | From “Moron” to Maladjusted”: Eugenics, Psychiatry and the Regulation of Women, Ontario, 1930s-1960s | History | 2013-11 | In the early 1900s, the eugenics movement spurred a number of major developments in Ontario, among them the committal of large numbers of women to the Ontario Hospital, Cobourg under diagnoses of mental defect. A tool of reproductive control, institutionalization was meant to inhibit “feebleminded” women’s procreative capacities. Despite the absence of enabling legislation, evidence suggests eugenic sterilizations also occurred in the province. Drawing on the detailed patient case files of women confined to the Cobourg facility from the mid1930s to mid1960s, this dissertation re-examines the history of eugenics in Ontario to demonstrate not only its profound impact in the decades prior to the Second World War, but also its enduring effects in the postwar era. To illustrate eugenics’ lingering impact, the study explores the interconnections between diagnoses linked to intellectual disabilities and emergent postwar psychiatric classifications of personality disorders to show how eugenics and psychiatric regulation were re-framed after the 1940s and applied to broader groups of women. Examining disability as both a category of analysis and a discursive construct, the dissertation argues that eugenicists re-scripted the notion of mentally ‘unfit’ into a concept of ‘maladjustment’ in the postwar years, and then applied it more broadly to justify and advance inequitable social relations across a range of social identities. Eugenics operated both materially and discursively as a mechanism through which particular configurations of gender, race, class, and sexuality, along with disability, were established and regulated. It was ultimately in and through early-twentieth-century eugenics that the ‘bio’ and ‘social’ collided, facilitating new notions of citizenship, modes of state governance, and the emergence of the modern bio-political state. | PhD | equitable, women, cities | 5, 11 |
| Cousté, Natalia Maria | Rupp, Stephen | Urban Cartographies: The Spanish Baroque City and the Contemporary Latin American City | Spanish | 2011-03 | “Urban Cartographies: The Spanish Baroque City and the Contemporary Latin American City” examines baroque and postmodern narratives through the representation of urban life. This study argues that the baroque reflects the crisis posed by the encounter with the other in the new continent of America, while the postmodern is related to a crisis of knowledge. Selected narrative texts illustrate the main literary tendencies of these two periods and demonstrate similarities in the responses of literary characters to their urban settings. The sense of crisis is both a central literary theme and a response to the historical conditions of urban life during the two periods. Even though the concept of crisis appears to involve a unique experience, the parallels be |