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Women And Medicine On The Gold Coast, 1880-1945, Michael Osei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Prior to colonial rule and the imposition of western medicine and practices, several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa relied on traditional medicine to treat tropical diseases that ravaged the populace. Specialists in traditional medicine, both men and women, restored and preserved their patients' health through herbarium and spiritism. Like their male counterparts, female traditional medicine practitioners on the Gold Coast were highly respected by people for their knowledge and competence as their communities' primary healers and caregivers. This study, drawing on various primary and secondary sources, including oral traditions, colonial reports, medical journals, and historical accounts, argues that women played a …

Water-Fat Magnetic Resonance Imaging For The Assessment Of Human Fetal Adipose Tissue, Stephanie A. Giza

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Adipose tissue is crucial for providing heat and energy to infants, especially at transitions such as birth and therefore must begin developing in utero. This development may be altered due to an adverse uterine environment, increasing the risk of developing later-life metabolic diseases such as obesity. An early assessment of fetal adipose tissue development through lipid accumulation could be key to understanding metabolic programming and minimizing this risk.

Water-fat magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can non-invasively measure the lipid concentration of tissues and can therefore monitor the development of adipose tissue via tissue lipid concentration. This work demonstrated the feasibility …

“Return To Play”: The Impact Of, And Changes To, Ontario Children’S Physical Activity During Covid-19, Monika B. Szpunar Ms.

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explored parents’ and their children’s perspectives of returning to play/sport during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada, and assessed how children’s physical activity levels changed during COVID-19. To understand the initial impact of the pandemic, Study 1 (August 2020) explored the influence of family sociodemographic factors (e.g., housing type) and risk tolerance (using the validated Tolerance of Risk in Play Scale) on parents’ return to play/sport attitudes. Via interviews with parents (n = 9) and children (n = 12), Study 2 (December 2020 – January 2021) gathered participants’ experiences of getting active …

Essays On Macroeconomics, Mauricio Torres Ferro

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My dissertation consists of three essays on Macroeconomics. In the first two chapters, I study the implications of uncertain expenses for households' savings and for their consumption adjustment in response to monetary policy. In the third chapter, I study how asset liquidity affects households’ ability to smooth idiosyncratic income shocks.

In the first chapter, I characterize uncertain expenses using U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data. Here, my goals are twofold. First, I classify households’ spending that captures uncertainties in expenses (for example, car and home repairs or out-of-pocket medical expenses) and measure their overall importance. Second, I aim to understand how …

Does Acute Maximal Exercise Or Chronic Physical Activity Affect Circulating Angiotensin (1-9) Concentrations?, Kyle R. Weiman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Introduction: Epidemiological evidence suggests physical inactivity can increase the likelihood of hospitalization from the SARS-COV-2 virus. Further, some data indicate a greater ratio of angiotensin 1-9 to angiotensin I helps prevent severe outcomes during infection. Moreover, related hormones can enhance potentially both physical activity and health. The purpose of this study was to determine whether plasma concentrations of angiotensin (1-9) are modified after a single exhaustive exercise bout and whether sex or chronic physical activity is associated with greater plasma concentrations.

Methods: Participants (n=14) performed a graded exercise test on a cycle ergometer. Antecubital area venipunctures were performed before, immediately …

Neuropsychological Outcomes After Cardiac Surgery: A Pilot Feasibility Study, Sydni G. Paleczny

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Approximately half of patients who have cardiac surgery will experience deficits in attention, memory, and thinking speed after their operation. Given that heart surgery is one of the most common medical procedures in Canada, it is necessary to better understand the natural history of cognitive impairment after such surgery. Yet, there is no globally accepted method for measuring cognitive function in patients who undergo heart surgery. To address this, we assessed whether it was feasible to use a web-based approach to measure cognition in heart surgery patients before and after their operation. Findings showed that remote administration of cognitive testing …

Dpnovo: A Deep Learning Model Combined With Dynamic Programming For De Novo Peptide Sequencing, Yizhou Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

De novo peptide sequencing is an efficient approach to identifying peptides from tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Compared with the database search methods, de novo peptide sequencing is particularly effective in identifying novo peptide sequences. This thesis presents a new De Novo sequencing model comprising two deep learning models and a dynamic programming algorithm, namely DpNovo. The deep learning model learns features of a spectrum and gives scores to each peak, and the dynamic programming is capable of determining the optimal amino acid sequence path with the highest accumulated score. Finally, the predicted sequence with mass values representing uncertain mass intervals …

Outcomes Important To Measure For Patients Following Lumbar Spinal Fusion Surgery, Onyinyechukwu C. Umemba

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis aimed to investigate the outcomes that are important to measure for patients following LSFS. First, a systematic review identified outcomes that have been measured for patients from existing LSFS literature. Findings from 50 included studies found 35 outcomes have been measured. Second, a secondary analysis of qualitative study explored patients' perceptions identifying 25 outcomes perceived as important to measure. Synthesis of findings across studies showed variability of outcomes and different perspectives reflecting that the outcomes measured in research are sometimes the same, but they can also vary from what patients perceive as important. These outcomes were related to …

Recovery From Social Isolation In Drosophila: The Role Of Dopamine And The Autism-Related Gene Nlg3., Ryley T. Yost

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Within a group, individuals establish their preferred distance from each other, or social space, a form of social behaviour. The resulting distance depends on the exchange of social cues from others that needs to be perceived and integrated within the organism’s neural circuitry. In humans, social spacing can be impaired in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. When organisms are subject to social isolation, profound changes in social behaviour are observed in a variety of species from insects to mammals, including social space. However, the genetic and molecular mechanisms modulating a behavioural response to isolation and possible recovery remain …

Exploring Brain-Derived Progenitor Cells As A Therapeutic Delivery System To Glioblastoma, Andrew T. Olin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a devastating incurable malignant brain cancer in need of new treatments. We have begun to investigate the feasibility of a primary adult cell type (Brain-Derived Progenitor Cells, BDPCs) as a novel therapeutic delivery system to GBM. Our objective was to track the viability of BDPCs after intratumoral infusion into syngeneic orthotopic rat GBM tumours using non-invasive bioluminescence imaging (BLI). We hypothesize rat BDPCs will survive greater than 1 week following infusion into orthotopic F98 GBM tumors. BDPCs harvested from the cortex of adult Fischer rats were expanded in culture then engineered to co-express firefly Luciferase for BLI …

Predicting Brain Metastasis Response To Stereotactic Radiosurgery Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging Radiomics And Machine Learning, David A. Devries

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Brain metastases (BMs) represent advanced cancer, and so BM patients must be treated quickly and effectively while minimizing treatment toxicities. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) uses conformal, ablative radiation doses to treat BMs, but with failure rates up to 30%. A predictive model of BM progression post-SRS would therefore aid in BM treatment selection and SRS planning. Previous studies have used pre-treatment T1-weighted contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (T1w-CE MRI) to predict SRS outcomes, through quantitative radiomic analysis with machine learning (ML) and qualitative appearance analysis. Comparison of these methods is not well understood, and ML methods have not been studied for sensitivity …

Economics Or Culture? Measuring Economic Thinking And Cultural Enrichment Beliefs About Immigration., Paolo Aldrin Palma

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present work attempts to distinguish people’s economic concerns about immigration from their (anti-)diversity attitudes, and examines how these economic concerns influence attitudes towards immigrants. To do this, we develop a scale to assess economic thinking and cultural enrichment beliefs about immigration (ETI/CBI). Economic thinking was associated with personality and ideological traits related to viewing the world as competitive and anti-diversity attitudes. Cultural enrichment beliefs on the other hand, were associated with traits associated with a preference for equity and pro-diversity orientations. Furthermore, economic thinking was associated with greater preferences to reduce immigration for all migrant groups except economic migrants, …

Mechanisms Underlying Stem Cell Depletion In Ageing., Mackenzie Hsu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As we age, our bodies lose the ability to repair damaged tissues. This impairment may be due to age-related deficits in our regenerative stem cells. Stem cells reside in specialized areas called stem cell niches. Ageing may cause alterations in the stem cells directly or may alter the stem cell niche to generate deficits. However, systematic studies mapping stem cell deficits and alterations to stem cell niche are lacking. Here, I investigated the bone marrows of young and aged mice to determine age-related changes in the microenvironment that may alter resident stem cells.

To achieve my research objective, I examined …

Polynomial Density Of Compact Smooth Surfaces, Luke P. Broemeling

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We show that any smooth closed surface has polynomial density 3 and that any connected compact smooth surface with boundary has polynomial density 2.

Investigating Neutral And Climate-Linked Morphological Variation In Human Femora: A Geometric Morphometrics Approach, Isabelle Rutherford

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis aimed to differentiate climatic and ‘neutral’ morphological signatures in the human femur, allowing anthropologists to improve their interpretations of behaviour in the past. A dataset of geometric morphometric data and traditional linear measurements for eleven globally distributed hunter-gatherer groups, measures of distance from an estimated African Origin, and a set of climatic variables were used to separate the relative effect of neutral demographic processes and climatic selection on femoral morphology. Within-population shape variance was not significantly predicted by any of the variables tested. Adherence to Bergmann’s rule was identified in the linear measurements on the individual and population …

Shedding Light On Hearing In Coma: Investigating The Applicability Of Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy For Assessing Auditory Function And Aiding Prognosis In Patients With Acute Disorders Of Consciousness, Reza Moulavi Ardakani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There is a critical need for a bedside neuroimaging tool to aid in the prediction of functional recovery outcomes for patients with acute disorders of consciousness (DoC) in the early days following severe brain injury. Current neurobehavioral examinations and prognosis tools have limitations in predicting good outcomes, leading to potential mistreatment or premature withdrawal of life support. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a viable candidate for such purposes due to its portability and cost-effectiveness. Auditory processing, viewed as a multi-level and multifaceted brain function, could provide a sensitive and specific marker of residual cognitive function in unresponsive patients. This study …

The Effect Of Kidney Preservation At 10°C With Hemopure And Hydrogen Sulfide Donor, Sodium Thiosulfate, In A Syngeneic Model Of Rat Renal Transplantation, Maria Abou Taka

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Kidney transplantation is preferred for patients with end-stage renal disease. The current gold standard for preserving kidneys is static cold storage (SCS) at 4°C in University of Wisconsin (UW) solution. However, SCS contributes to ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI), which involves cell death and inflammation. Our group showed that SCS of kidneys with hydrogen sulfide donors, like sodium thiosulfate (STS), that reduce tissue injury enhanced kidney survival. Though, there is still a risk of cold renal IRI at 4°C. Recent evidence suggests that preserving organs at 10°C enhanced graft function and survival. Therefore, this thesis will evaluate the effect of 10°C kidney …

Exploring The Impact Of Mood States On Motivation To Consume Food And Non-Food Rewards In Individuals With Loss Of Control Eating, Kendall M. Schmidt

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Introduction. Loss of control (LOC) eating episodes are eating episodes in which an individual feels they cannot control what or how much they are eating, regardless of the amount of food consumed. These episodes are associated with significant psychological distress, psychiatric comorbidity, and reduced quality of living. Both negative affect and heightened reward processing of food have been posited as mechanisms that contribute to LOC eating. However, few studies have investigated whether negative affect influences reward processing of food and/or non-food rewards in individuals with LOC eating. Understanding how purported mechanisms of LOC work in conjunction may help to …

Cofounder Selection & Satisfaction: How Entrepreneurial Cofounders Come Together And Succeed Together, Audra G. Quinn

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As many new ventures are created by teams, not solo founders, choosing a cofounder is an important decision for entrepreneurs. The individuals who mutually select into the founding team not only define and develop the concept, imprint the venture, and influence its chances of success, but also impact each other’s satisfaction and willingness to persevere. Yet despite these relationships’ crucial implications, the literature offers only scattered insights into how and why cofounders come together and succeed together.

With this dissertation, I advance theoretical understanding of what goes into forming and maintaining a quality cofounder relationship—a key resource that can neither …

Automatic Classification And Segmentation Of Patterned Martian Ground Using Deep Learning Techniques, Ruthy Brito

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Science autonomy onboard spacecraft can optimize image return by prioritizing downlink of meaningful data. Martian polygonally cracked ground is actively studied by planetary geologists and may be indicative of subsurface water. Filtering images containing these polygonal features can be used as a case study for science autonomy and to reduce the overhead associated with parsing through Martian surface images. This thesis demonstrates the use of deep learning techniques in the classification of Martian polygonally patterned ground from HiRISE images. Three tasks are considered, a binary classification to identify images containing polygons, multiclass classification distinguishing different polygon types and semantic segmentation …

The Perceptions Of The Real Estate Sector On Pluvial Flooding In London, Ontario, Emilia Cameron

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The frequency and intensity of pluvial flooding events are increasing in London, Ontario resulting in basement flooding of residential homes. While London has made a number of improvements to its sewer infrastructure to address this issue, their ongoing focus has been to assist homeowners through a grant program as they recognized that increasing awareness of pluvial flood risk and mitigative measures will increase the resiliency of the community. Real estate sector professionals are ideally positioned to discuss the risks and mitigative measures with homeowners before the purchase of a home. Through online surveys and structured telephone interviews, this thesis investigated …

Exploration Of The Immune Landscape Of Ebv-Associated Gastric Cancers, Mikhail Salnikov

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is a gammaherpesvirus associated with 9% of all gastric cancers (GCs). EBV-associated GCs (EBVaGCs) are pathologically and clinically distinct entities from EBV-negative GCs (EBVnGCs), with EBVaGCs exhibiting differential molecular pathology and patient prognosis. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the tumor microenvironment (TME) of EBVaGCs, which has not been explored in-depth. We hypothesize that EBVaGCs and EBVnGCs are also distinct in terms of the molecular immune landscape. We employed over 400 stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), as well as a single cell dataset, for the construction of a web suite …

The Influences Of The Mindfulness Ambassador Program On Graduate Students, Varsha Vasudevan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The two-fold primary purpose of this pilot study was to: (1) explore, qualitatively, the influence of the Mindfulness Ambassador Program (MAP) on graduate students’ experiences of stress and their relationship with themselves and meaningful others; and (2) investigate, quantitatively, if participation in the MAP elicited changes in graduate students’ levels of stress, self-awareness, interpersonal skills, and/or social connectedness. The secondary purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of graduate students’ satisfaction with the MAP. This one-group mixed-method study utilized a brief demographic questionnaire, open-ended questions, semi-structured interviews, two MAP-specific program questionnaires, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Situational Self-Awareness …

Teaching Experiences Of Elementary School Teachers: An Analysis In The Post-Covid Era, Ankita Rawat

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The research provides a deeper understanding of the varied in-person teaching experiences of elementary school teachers in the post-COVID Era. Under this main objective, it explored the teaching styles, views, and attitude of elementary school teachers towards teaching post-COVID-19. It also explores the technological transformation undergone by the teachers and the most preferred teaching modes (face-to-face, online, and blended) used by elementary school teachers in India after returning to the classroom, post-COVID-19. A mixed-method research approach was used to answer the research questions. The technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework and Bandura self-efficacy theory were used as conceptual frameworks in …

The Concept Of Trust In Newly-Formed Versus Long-Term Romantic Relationships, Omar Jordan Camanto

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Trust, a fundamental principle upon which social relationships are predicated, is axiomatically thought to develop for someone by virtue of time spent and past experiences with that someone. However, existing data suggest that trust for a romantic partner already manifests at unvaryingly high quantities from the earliest stages of the relationship onward. Via measurement modelling, we investigated the extent to which the construction of trust – harkening to the intra-psychic entity itself, rather than the measured quantity – varies and addresses different psychological meaning at different stages of romantic relationships. Across two studies (Study 1, N = 464; Study 2, …

Framework For Assessing Information System Security Posture Risks, Syed Waqas Hamdani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In today’s data-driven world, Information Systems, particularly the ones operating in regulated industries, require comprehensive security frameworks to protect against loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data, whether due to malice, accident or otherwise. Once such a security framework is in place, an organization must constantly monitor and assess the overall compliance of its systems to detect and rectify any issues found. This thesis presents a technique and a supporting toolkit to first model dependencies between security policies (referred to as controls) and, second, devise models that associate risk with policy violations. Third, devise algorithms that propagate risk when …

Psychometric Validation Of The Team Resilience Inventory, Alexander J. Mcgregor 6971928

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Work teams frequently face adversities that may affect group processes and ultimately lead to a loss of performance. Despite a large literature on the characteristics of high-performance work teams, we know little about the processes by which teams resist, persist through, adapt to, recover from, or otherwise be resilient to challenges that they encounter. In part, this is due to the lack of a psychometrically sound and well-validated measure for team resilience; how work teams collectively respond to and ‘bounce back’ from adversities. The present dissertation project addresses this need in the literature through the development and validation of the …

Evaluating The Likelihood Of Bug Inducing Commits Using Metrics Trend Analysis, Parul Parul

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Continuous software engineering principles advocate a release-small, release-often process model, where new functionality is added to a system, in small increments and very frequently. In such a process model, every time a change is introduced it is important to identify as early as possible, whether the system has entered a state where faults are more likely to occur. In this paper, we present a method that is based on process, quality, and source code metrics to evaluate the likelihood that an imminent bug-inducing commit is highly probable. More specifically, the method analyzes the correlations and the rate of change of …

The Effect Of Dietary Thiaminase On Cardiac Function And Morphology In Lake Trout (Salvelinus Namaycush), Peter Baker

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thiamine deficiency from the consumption of invasive, high-thiaminase prey fishes is considered to be a major barrier for lake trout restoration in the Great Lakes. In fishes, an understudied aspect of thiamine deficiency is its effect on cardiac function. I examined the effects of dietary thiaminase on cardiac function and morphology in lake trout, specifically as they relate to thermal tolerance. Two hatchery strains of lake trout (Seneca and Slate) were raised on a control or thiaminase diet for nine months. The thiaminase diet was associated with significant ventricle enlargement, impaired cardiac function, and reduced thermal tolerance; these effects were …

A 10 S: 5 S High-Intensity Interval Training Regime Improves Rowing Performance In Varsity And International Class Rowers, Braden J. Reid

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a high-intensity interval training regime with elite collegiate rowers on their rowing performance. A total of 10 interval training sessions were performed over a four-week period with four males and five females completing all pre-testing performance and training sessions. Participants completed a 2000 m performance test to determine initial training intensity. The interventional training sessions consisted of 30 min of 10 s work: 5 s recovery. The 10 s mean power output improved 17% from training session one to ten. The moderate-intensity increased by 44%; mean power output over …