The Truth And Reconciliation Commission Of Canada And Crown-Aboriginal Relations, Timothy E.M. Vine

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The Indian Residential School system was one of the most visible instances of a broader colonial project that sought to destroy Aboriginal difference in Canada and overthrow a relationship based on treaties and mutual respect. As part of an out-of-court settlement of several class action law suits by school survivors against the federal government and churches, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was tasked with setting a historic record of the effects of the residential schools and fostering reconciliation between the parties to the settlement (including Aboriginal plaintiffs, the Government of Canada, the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church, United …

Physiological And Behavioral Evidence Of Auditory Processing Deficit In Children Suspected Of Auditory Processing Disorder, Sangamanatha Ankmnal Veeranna

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A series of studies were carried out to examine the neural and behavioral processing of acoustic stimuli in children with suspected auditory processing disorder (sAPD).

The click-evoked auditory brainstem responses recorded from children with sAPD and adults were analyzed using traditional clinical measures and detailed analysis seeking to explore the separate contributions of axonal conduction and synaptic transmission. Clinical measures revealed significant prolongation of absolute latencies and interwave intervals in children with sAPD compared to adults. Examination of responses delineating axonal vs. synaptic transmission showed frequent delays in synaptic factors and fewer instances of delays related to axonal conduction in …

New Insights Into Signal Detection Of The Effects Of Exposures During Pregnancy, Fatma Etwel

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There is inadequate information on the fetal safety of drugs during pregnancy for the majority of marketed drugs. It is challenging to examine the safety and efficacy of drugs during pregnancy due to the ethical issues of exposing unborn babies to these chemicals. It often takes many years before associations between a drug and its safety, efficacy, and toxicity in pregnancy can be established. This thesis will examine strategies in signal detection of the effects of drug exposures during pregnancy.

Meta-analyses have become useful in the area of clinical teratology. Observational studies provide the main source of information in these …

Liquid Phase Nano Metal Catalyzed Dechlorination Of Chlorinated Organic Compounds, Omneya El-Sharnouby

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1,2-Dichloroethane (1,2-DCA) is among the most prevalent groundwater chlorinated organic compounds (COCs) found at hazardous sites throughout the world. Given its pervasive contamination and adverse health effects, there is considerable interest in developing novel remediation technologies for successfully treating 1,2-DCA along with other COCs from water sources. Chemical reduction by nano zero valent iron (monometallic (nZVI) or bimetallic (Pd-nZVI)) has proven to be a successful field applicable technology, yet it has failed in degrading such a recalcitrant compound as 1,2-DCA.

In this study, the development of a field applicable nano metal based technology capable of degrading 1,2-DCA was carried out. …

Self-Disclosure Among Male Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse: Service Providers’ Perspective, Marudan Sivagurunathan

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Previous research regarding child sexual abuse (CSA) indicates significant gender differences in disclosure rates: specifically, males are less likely to disclose their child sexual abuse in comparison to females. CSA can have lasting impact on a child’s emotional, physical, and psychological wellbeing. Trauma studies show support and early intervention is necessary for CSA survivors to re-establish a sense of safety and to experience better quality of life. Service providers play a key role in providing care and support for male CSA survivors. However, little is known about service providers, who work with male CSA survivors, and their perceptions and attitudes …

Measuring Brain Serine With Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy At 3.0 Tesla, Homa Javadzadeh

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Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) non-invasively measures regional human brain chemistry in vivo, providing concentration estimates for several metabolites in a pre-selected region of interest. MRS has been applied to investigations of disease-related metabolic and neurochemical alterations in schizophrenia since the early 90’s.

The objective of this research is to implement a metabolite-selective MRS method to quantify endogenous concentrations of human brain serine. Serine is a naturally-occurring amino acid and an important co-modulator of the N-Methyl D-aspartic Acid (NMDA) glutamate receptor. Glutamate abnormalities have been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, especially its so-called negative and cognitive symptoms, which can …

Analysis Of 3d Cone-Beam Ct Image Reconstruction Performance On A Fpga, Devin Held

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Efficient and accurate tomographic image reconstruction has been an intensive topic of research due to the increasing everyday usage in areas such as radiology, biology, and materials science. Computed tomography (CT) scans are used to analyze internal structures through capture of x-ray images. Cone-beam CT scans project a cone-shaped x-ray to capture 2D image data from a single focal point, rotating around the object. CT scans are prone to multiple artifacts, including motion blur, streaks, and pixel irregularities, therefore must be run through image reconstruction software to reduce visual artifacts. The most common algorithm used is the Feldkamp, Davis, and …

Hospital Menu Assessment Of Nutrient Composition And Patient Satisfaction, Susan Greig

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Patient satisfaction with menu items enhances intake, and adequate intake of nutrients contained within hospital menus is required for recovery. A survey of foodservice leaders in Ontario hospitals determined the frequency and methods used to assess patient satisfaction with, and the nutritional composition of, menus. From this cross sectional study emerged themes, complemented by quantitative data that demonstrated gaps in practice. Findings suggest that over half of hospitals surveyed assessed regular menus for nutritional adequacy; 53 percent assessed therapeutic menus and 44 percent assessed texture modified menus. This differs from hospitals governing long term care facilities in which 75 percent …

Investigation Of Grouted Dowel Connection For Precast Concrete Wall Construction, Douglas J. Provost-Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The grouted dowel connection is a simple and cost-effective connection used in many precast concrete structural systems. The required dowel length is currently designed as a regular bar in reinforced concrete, which underestimates the bond strength, thus resulting in excessive connection lengths. Furthermore, precast wall construction continues throughout cold weather, where in-situ heating of the grout used in the grouted dowel connections is usually conducted for short periods of time. Hence, early-age exposure to subfreezing conditions may affect the quality of the grout and subsequently the bond strength of the connection, which can compromise structural integrity.

In this thesis, full-scale …

Examining The Impacts Of Wife Abuse And Child Abuse On Saudi Women’S Mental And Physical Health, Eman Alhalal

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Research has not extensively examined the contextual mechanisms by which Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and child abuse lead to chronic pain. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms overlap, yet, it is not clear whether they function in unique ways as mediators of the relationships of abuse with chronic pain. Thus, the purposes of this study were to: a) test a causal model that explains the mechanisms by which severity of child abuse and wife abuse affect chronic pain among Saudi women, and the mediating role of symptoms of depression and PTSD and perceived family support and, b) advance the …

Regulatory Compliance-Oriented Impediments And Associated Effort Estimation Metrics In Requirements Engineering For Contractual Systems Engineering Projects, Md Rashed I. Nekvi

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Large-scale contractual systems engineering projects often need to comply with a myriad of government regulations and standards as part of contractual fulfillment. A key activity in the requirements engineering (RE) process for such a project is to elicit appropriate requirements from the regulations and standards that apply to the target system. However, there are impediments in achieving compliance due to such factors as: the voluminous contract and its high-level specifications, large number of regulatory documents, and multiple domains of the system. Little empirical research has been conducted on developing a shared understanding of the compliance-oriented complexities involved in such projects, …

Leadership Practices Of Principals Of Selected Public Secondary Schools In Kathmandu, Nepal, Shankar Singh

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Academic performance of students from most of the public schools in Nepal is not satisfactory. However, there are a few public schools consistently performing well despite similar students’ and teachers’ backgrounds, infrastructure and resources. This study explored how principals’ understandings and practices of their leadership role may have influenced students’ learning.

For this study five higher performing and five lower performing schools from Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) were chosen. In-depth interviews and separate focus group discussions were conducted with the principals. Findings were analyzed under six dimensions of effective school leadership identified from the literature: (a) vision building and goal …

The Work Of Elementary Principals In Supporting New Teachers In Ontario, Publicly-Funded, English Speaking Schools, Jennifer M. Gonyou-Brown

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Teachers benefit from instructional, emotional, institutional and physical supports in their early years of practice (Lipton & Wellman, 2003). Yet, with a teacher surplus in Ontario, many early career teachers (ECTs) spend years in transient, short-term work prior to qualifying for the New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP). As school leaders, Ontario elementary principals develop and facilitate supports for the ECTs in their school. However, principals have identified their workloads to be demanding and intensifying (Pollock, 2014b). ECT support development is one of many responsibilities that principals undertake in their work.

This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews with twelve elementary principals …

Like Angels Among Them: John Calvin And The Protestant Pastorate, Jeff Temple

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One of the most significant challenges faced by sixteenth century Protestants was the need to define the character and function of the ministerial office. Having rejected the medieval model of a cleric who mediated contacted with the Divine via the sacramental system, Protestant were confronted with the task of redefining the clerical task in light of their core values of sola fide and sola Scriptura. The first generation Reformers, however (men like Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and Martin Bucer), had proven unable to meet this challenge in a sustained and substantial way. Thus, the task fell to the next …

Safe Haptics-Enabled Patient-Robot Interaction For Robotic And Telerobotic Rehabilitation Of Neuromuscular Disorders: Control Design And Analysis, Seyed Farokh Atashzar

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Motivation: Current statistics show that the population of seniors and the incidence rate of age-related neuromuscular disorders are rapidly increasing worldwide. Improving medical care is likely to increase the survival rate but will result in even more patients in need of Assistive, Rehabilitation and Assessment (ARA) services for extended periods which will place a significant burden on the world's healthcare systems. In many cases, the only alternative is limited and often delayed outpatient therapy. The situation will be worse for patients in remote areas. One potential solution is to develop technologies that provide efficient and safe means of in-hospital and …

The Impacts Of Climate Change On Communities Of Fungi In Boreal Peatlands, Asma Asemaninejad Hassankiadeh

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Peatlands have an important role in global climate change through sequestration of atmospheric CO₂. Climate change is already affecting these ecosystems, including both above- and below- ground communities and their functions. Fungi play a central role in these communities. As a result, there is concern that altered fungal community function may turn peatlands from carbon sinks to carbon sources, greatly exacerbating the impacts of climate change. In order to gain a better insight into effects of climate change on the structure and function of these carbon sequestrating ecosystems, this thesis focuses on diversity and structure of fungal communities …

Royal Army, Fascist Empire: The Regio Esercito On Occupation Duty, 1936–1943, Nicolas G. Virtue

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Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 ushered in a new imperial phase that aimed to radicalize Italian Fascism at home and abroad. But the military commanders entrusted with conquering and pacifying Fascism’s imperial dominion, and moulding the Fascist “new man” through war, belonged to a conservative monarchist institution with ambiguous ties to Mussolini’s regime. This dissertation explores the relationship between the Royal Italian Army and Fascist empire-building in Africa and Europe, focusing on the Italian military occupation of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and of Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1943. Drawing on ministerial, gubernatorial, division, corps, and army-level archival material, …

Combined Analysis Of Tide- And Wave-Induced Water Table Fluctuations For Structural Characterization Of A Coastal Aquifer, Victoria A. Trglavcnik

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Understanding of coastal hydrogeology is essential for the assessment, management, and protection of coastal groundwater resources. Coastal groundwater is often an important source of drinking water for coastal communities but can be contaminated by saltwater or human-derived contaminants. The groundwater table in coastal aquifers fluctuates in response to various oceanic pressure forces acting at the shoreline, including tides, individual waves, and offshore storms. Measurements of water table fluctuations in response to tides and waves can be used to characterize coastal aquifers and provide important insight into the hydraulic properties and structure, including the connectivity between the aquifer and ocean. Most …

Optimizing The Composition And Delivery Of Assessment And Treatment Following Distal Radius Fracture, Michael L. Szekeres

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Distal radius fracture (DRF) is the most common fracture.¹ The most recent Cochrane review indicated “The available evidence from randomized controlled trials is insufficient to establish the relative effectiveness of the various interventions used in the rehabilitation of adults with fractures of the distal radius”.²

Since the relative effectiveness of the various interventions used for rehabilitation after DRF is unknown, the main goal of this thesis is to focus on one aspect of both assessment and treatment to add to the current literature base. The first paper (Chapter 2) describes a new method using a modified finger goniometer …

Dose-Related Sex Differences In The Establishment Of Conditioned Disgust (Anticipatory Nausea), And The Effect Of Peripubertal And Adult Immune System Stimulation With The Endotoxin Lipopolysaccharide (Lps) On Learning And Memory In The Rat, Caylen J. Cloutier

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This thesis examined sex differences in the establishment of lithium chloride (LiCl) – induced conditioned disgust behavior (anticipatory nausea) to a distinct context, as well as, the establishment of conditioned place avoidance (CPA) using rodent models. Also examined were potential sex differences in response to treatment with the bacterial endotoxin, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and its effect on learning and memory. In Chapter 2, male and female naïve Long-Evans rats were injected (intraperitoneally; i.p.) with either 200 µg/kg LPS or 0.9% (NaCl), 90 minutes prior to i.p. injections of either 128 mg/kg LiCl or 0.9% NaCl, and immediately placed into a distinctive …

Examining The Active Transportation - Built Environment Relationship In London, Ontario, Douglas M. Rivet

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Research on the relationship between the built environment and active transportation has accelerated and expanded over the past 20 years. This growth is in large part due to continuing evidence of rising rates in obesity and Type-2 diabetes that coincides with decreasing rates of physical activity across all ages in the post-industrial world. Walking more is a simple solution to increasing rates of physical activity. While for most people walking is possible throughout the day, there has been a decrease in the use of walking as a means of transportation. This study examines environmental determinants of active transportation from two …

Development Of Design Loads For Transmission Line Structures Subjected To Downbursts Using Aero-Elastic Testing And Numerical Modeling, Amal Elawady

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The failure of transmission line structures due to severe High Intensity Wind (HIW) events is one of the major problems facing the electrical utility companies in various places around the globe including Canada. An extensive research program focusing on this problem started about fifteen years ago at The University of Western Ontario (UWO). In this Thesis, two major milestones are achieved leading to the advancement of the knowledge in this field. The first milestone is conducting, for the first time, a test on an aero-elastic model of a multi-span transmission system under reduced–scale simulated downbursts. The first objective of the …

Modeling, Sensorization And Control Of Concentric-Tube Robots, Ran Xu

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Since the concept of the Concentric-Tube Robot (CTR) was proposed in 2006, CTRs have been a popular research topic in the field of surgical robotics. The unique mechanical design of this robot allows it to navigate through narrow channels in the human anatomy and operate in highly constrained environments. It is therefore likely to become the next generation of surgical robots to overcome the challenges that cannot be addressed by current technologies. In CSTAR, we have had ongoing work over the past several years aimed at developing novel techniques and technologies for CTRs. This thesis describes the contributions made in …

Environmental Impact Assessment For Oil And Gas Projects: A Comparative Evaluation Of Canadian And Nigerian Laws, Omolola Anuoluwapo Fasina

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Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a tool mandated by regulatory authorities to prevent environmental degradation and foster a sustainable environment. Procedural rights to access information and participate in decision-making are understood as key components of good environmental governance. This research compares the EIA laws in Nigeria and Canada and identifies areas of improvement in the EIA processes of both countries with regards to oil and gas activities, in light of existing international norms and, with a focus on public participation and climate change.

The research reveals that Canada, a developed country, has a more rigorous and effective public participation process …

Development And Optimization Of 19f-Mri For Tracking Cellular Therapeutics, Jeffrey M. Gaudet

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Introduction: This thesis aims to advance magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for imaging cellular therapeutics. Traditional, proton-based, MRI provides detailed anatomical images, particularly of soft tissue. However, in order to obtain information at a cellular level specialized imaging agents are required to detect the cells of interest. Perfluorocarbons containing non-radioactive fluorine-19 (¹⁹F) are both biologically safe and MR sensitive. Methods: Pre-clinical ¹⁹F-MRI was implemented on a Varian 9.4T MRI scanner, using a dual ¹⁹F/¹H-tuned birdcage volume coil. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) were pre-labeled with a commercial, FDA approved ¹⁹F-perfluorocarbon emulsion, then implanted intramuscularly into …

Laying The Foundation For Copyright Policy And Practice In Canadian Universities, Lisa Di Valentino

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Due to significant changes in the Canadian copyright system, universities are seeking new ways to address the use of copyrighted works within their institutions. While the law provides quite a bit of leeway for use of copyrighted materials for educational and research purposes, the response by Canadian universities and related associations has not been to fully embrace their legal rights – rather, they have taken an approach that places emphasis on risk avoidance rather than maximizing use of materials, unlike their American counterparts. In the U.S., where educational fair use is arguably less flexible in application than fair dealing, there …

Role Of Causal Information In Patient Education: An Experimental And Clinical Approach, Karen M. Zhang

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Abstract

It is somewhat paradoxical that few patient education interventions actually consider the processes by which individuals best learn health-related information. The paucity of empirically validated teaching strategies impedes efforts to improve the delivery of care in cardiovascular rehabilitation and secondary prevention (CRSP) programs. The main goal of this dissertation was to examine whether explaining how illness pathophysiology, symptoms and health behaviour are interconnected (i.e., causal information) enhances the effectiveness of patient education materials.

This question was first addressed in a laboratory setting (Study 1) in which younger and older adults read about a fictitious disease under two conditions. Younger …

Registration And Familial Consent For Deceased Organ Donation Among Ethnic Minorities In Ontario, Canada: Opportunities For Improvement, Alvin Li

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Canadians on the transplant waiting list are dying every day because there are not enough available solid organs for transplantation. An important aspect of addressing this problem is to increase deceased organ donation consent rates. Consent rates are, in part, affected by the number of adults registering their commitment to deceased organ donation in the event of their death through a donor registry. In provinces such as Ontario, approximately 30% of the population is registered for deceased organ donation and approximately 60% of families consent to organ donation. These low figures have been attributed, without evidence, to the relatively high …

Mindfulness And Mothering: Reclaiming Feminine Voice, Lisa L. Mccorquodale

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Little is known about working mothers who practice mindfulness. This dissertation is a phenomenological investigation using body mapping as a way to understand how mindfulness works in the lives of six women who work in health and social care while parenting young children.

This dissertation is comprised of five integrated articles. Chapter 1 and 7 are included as an Introduction and Discussion/Conclusion to the five separate though related manuscript chapters. The main research questions that framed this research include, ‘What is the work of mindfulness in the lives of working professional mothers?’ and ‘In what ways might a mindfulness practice …

Signal Transduction Mechanisms Mediating The Regulation Of Vascular G Protein-Coupled Receptors, Elena Tutunea-Fatan

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Blood pressure homeostasis is controlled via a complex network of cell signaling mechanisms. Among the broad network of receptors and signaling molecules regulating blood vessel reactivity, members of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family are known to play a central role. GPCR activity represents a delicate, but coordinated balance between molecular mechanisms governing receptor signaling, desensitization, and re-sensitization. GPCR kinase 2 (GRK2) modulates multiple cellular responses through GPCR desensitization and alterations in GRK2 activity are considered to play an important role in the development of hypertension. The main premise of our study was to test whether the inhibition of GRK2 …