Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Immigrant’S Personal Network In The Integration Process: A Case Study Of Ghanaian Immigrants’ In The Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, Emmanuel Kojo Kyeremeh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation focuses on the integration of recent immigrants in receiving societies by analyzing their personal networks' contribution to this process. Although migration studies have stressed the importance of relationships or im/migrant networks in different spatial contexts, gaps exist in understanding this phenomenon. Specifically, studies on immigrants' networks' structure and composition that indicate their integration level in the host society is missing within the literature. This research, therefore, contributes to our understanding of personal networks. It considers the structure of immigrants’ network by examining the role of their migration project and context of reception towards developing ties in the host …

Perspectives Of Canadian University Coaches On Integrating Sport Psychology And Mental Performance Consultants In Varsity Programs, Federico Cisneros Sánchez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Recently, sport psychology has become a more popular resource for athletes and coaches when looking to increase performance. It is unknown how many Canadian universities utilize sport psychology services in their athletic programs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with coaches of Canadian university varsity teams to learn about their opinions on sport psychology and mental performance consultants (MPCs). The research was approached from a pragmatic perspective. Results showed that MPCs are important to enhance performance and provide mental health resources. MPCs provide athletes with personal and leadership development, mental skills training, and mental health support. MPCs can also be a resource …

The Role Of Haptic Expectations In Reaching To Grasp: From Pantomime To Natural Grasps And Back Again, Robert L. Whitwell, Nathan J. Katz, Melvyn A. Goodale, James T. Enns

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Whitwell, Katz, Goodale and Enns. When we reach to pick up an object, our actions are effortlessly informed by the object’s spatial information, the position of our limbs, stored knowledge of the object’s material properties, and what we want to do with the object. A substantial body of evidence suggests that grasps are under the control of “automatic, unconscious” sensorimotor modules housed in the “dorsal stream” of the posterior parietal cortex. Visual online feedback has a strong effect on the hand’s in-flight grasp aperture. Previous work of ours exploited this effect to show that grasps are …

Regional Integration: Physician Perceptions On Electronic Medical Record Use And Impact In South West Ontario, Sadiq Raji

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Regional initiatives in the health care context in Canada are typically organized and administered along geographic boundaries or operational units. Regional integration of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) has been continuing across Canadian provinces in recent years, yet the use and impact of regionally integrated EMRs are not routinely assessed and questions remain about their impact on and use in physicians’ practices. Are stated goals of simplifying connections and sharing of electronic health information collected and managed by many health services providers being met? What are physicians’ perspectives on the use and impact of regionally integrated EMR? In this thesis, I …

A Novel Spatio-Temporal Examination Of Children's Accessibility, Exposure, And Engagement To Parks And Recreation Spaces In Middlesex-London, Ontario, Malcolm K. Little

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Children are spending more free time engaged in activities indoors, rather than in outdoor environments such as parks and recreation spaces. Parks and recreation spaces provide amenities that promote physical, cognitive, and social health among children. As it relates to the complexities of children’s living situations, properly measuring children’s levels of interactions with these spaces is poorly understood in geography research.

By examining various attributes of children, this thesis improves on the measurement of children’s levels of interactions with parks and recreation spaces. Research herein utilized household survey data, a high-resolution GIS dataset of environmental factors, and GPS logs from …

Cannabis For Therapeutic Purposes: Older Adult Perspectives, User Characteristics And Motivations For Use, Lean Fiedeldey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Use of cannabis among adults 55 years of age and older is increasing. In Q4 of 2018, slightly over half of cannabis users used for therapeutic purposes at least once, where many reported using for both medical and non-medical reasons (mixed use). Research on older adults regarding the use of Cannabis for Therapeutic Purposes (CTP) is fragmented and there are no comprehensive or in-depth studies on their perceptions or self-reported motivations. Understanding in these areas is important to inform policy that takes the protection of public health and safety as central aims. Does policy affect one of, if not both, …

“It's All Window Dressing:” Canadian Police Officers' Perceptions Of Mental Health Stigma In Their Workplace, Lesley J. Bikos

Sociology Publications

Purpose: This study will provide a preliminary, general overview of Canadian police officers’ perception of stigma toward mental illness in their workplace culture and its impacts.

Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a mixed methods approach with two nationwide datasets: a self-report survey (N=727) and 116 semi-structured interviews with police officers from 31 police services. Results are grounded in theories of stigma, masculinities, and organizational culture.

Findings: Results indicate that most officers believe stigma toward mental illness in their workplace remains, despite senior management messaging and program implementation. Reporting mental illness was often seen as high risk, both personally and professionally. Policewomen, …

The Public Library As Past Become Space, Greg Nightingale

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

I use Walter Benjamin’s historical materialism in The Arcades Project to critique contemporary notions related to the understanding of the public library as a place. My critical theoretical approach, grounded in historical research and Benjamin’s theories of modernity, highlights contemporary aspects of the public library and broadens and deepens our understanding of the library’s physical role, both within and outside its walls. My research is based on the concurrent yet divergent social and cultural development of modern public libraries and Benjamin’s symbolic shopping arcades. Like Benjamin with the arcade, I believe that the public library contains innovative potentiality, in its …

Science And Sex Testing: The Beginnings Of A Female Testing Discourse, Camille M. Croteau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the 1960s, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned testing to verify the sex of elite female athletes. Sex tests, as they were called, did not extend to male athletes, and they have tended to rely on appearance and performance alone. Now measuring testosterone levels, the Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification scrutinizes female athletes far more than male athletes. This dissertation contributes to the sex testing literature by investigating three under-explored avenues: the history of the sex testing sports medical literature, a medical discourse analysis of IOC documents based on the implementation of sex testing, and a critical feminist …

Coexistence Of Perseveration And Apathy In The Tdp-43Q331k Knock-In Mouse Model Of Als–Ftd, Eosu Kim, Matthew A. White, Benjamin U. Phillips, Laura Lopez-Cruz, Hyunjeong Kim, Christopher J. Heath, Jong Eun Lee, Lisa M. Saksida, Jemeen Sreedharan, Timothy J. Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). Perseveration and apathy are two of the most common behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSDs) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–frontotemporal dementia (ALS–FTD). Availability of a validated and behaviourally characterised animal model is crucial for translational research into BPSD in the FTD context. We behaviourally evaluated the male TDP-43Q331K mouse, an ALS–FTD model with a human-equivalent mutation (TDP-43Q331K) knocked into the endogenous Tardbp gene. We utilised a panel of behavioural tasks delivered using the rodent touchscreen apparatus, including progressive ratio (PR), extinction and visual discrimination/reversal learning (VDR) assays to examine motivation, response inhibition and cognitive flexibility, respectively. …

Shared Functional Connectivity Between The Dorso-Medial And Dorso-Ventral Streams In Macaques, R. Stefan Greulich, Ramina Adam, Stefan Everling, Hansjörg Scherberger

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). Manipulation of an object requires us to transport our hand towards the object (reach) and close our digits around that object (grasp). In current models, reach-related information is propagated in the dorso-medial stream from posterior parietal area V6A to medial intraparietal area, dorsal premotor cortex, and primary motor cortex. Grasp-related information is processed in the dorso-ventral stream from the anterior intraparietal area to ventral premotor cortex and the hand area of primary motor cortex. However, recent studies have cast doubt on the validity of this separation in separate processing streams. We investigated in 10 male rhesus …

Neural Responses And Perceptual Sensitivity To Sound Depend On Sound-Level Statistics, Björn Herrmann, Thomas Augereau, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). Sensitivity to sound-level statistics is crucial for optimal perception, but research has focused mostly on neurophysiological recordings, whereas behavioral evidence is sparse. We use electroencephalography (EEG) and behavioral methods to investigate how sound-level statistics affect neural activity and the detection of near-threshold changes in sound amplitude. We presented noise bursts with sound levels drawn from distributions with either a low or a high modal sound level. One participant group listened to the stimulation while EEG was recorded (Experiment I). A second group performed a behavioral amplitude-modulation detection task (Experiment II). Neural activity depended on sound-level statistical …

Modeling An Auditory Stimulated Brain Under Altered States Of Consciousness Using The Generalized Ising Model, Sivayini Kandeepan, Jorge Rudas, Francisco Gomez, Bobby Stojanoski, Sree Ram Valluri, Adrian Mark Owen, Lorina Naci, Emily Sophia Nichols, Andrea Soddu

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Propofol is a short-acting medication that results in decreased levels of consciousness and is used for general anesthesia. Although it is the most commonly used anesthetic in the world, much remains unknown about the mechanisms by which it induces a loss of consciousness. Characterizing anesthesia-induced alterations to brain network activity might provide a powerful framework for understanding the neural mechanisms of unconsciousness. The aim of this work was to model brain activity in healthy brains during various stages of consciousness, as induced by propofol, in the auditory paradigm. We used the generalized Ising model (GIM) to fit the empirical fMRI …

Face Selective Patches In Marmoset Frontal Cortex, David J. Schaeffer, Janahan Selvanayagam, Kevin D. Johnston, Ravi S. Menon, Winrich A. Freiwald, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). In humans and macaque monkeys, socially relevant face processing is accomplished via a distributed functional network that includes specialized patches in frontal cortex. It is unclear whether a similar network exists in New World primates, who diverged ~35 million years from Old World primates. The common marmoset is a New World primate species ideally placed to address this question given their complex social repertoire. Here, we demonstrate the existence of a putative high-level face processing network in marmosets. Like Old World primates, marmosets show differential activation in anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortices while they view …

Brain Metabolite Levels In Sedentary Women And Non-Contact Athletes Differ From Contact Athletes, Amy L. Schranz, Gregory A. Dekaban, Lisa Fischer, Kevin Blackney, Christy Barreira, Timothy J. Doherty, Douglas D. Fraser, Arthur Brown, Jeff Holmes, Ravi S. Menon, Robert Bartha

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

White matter tracts are known to be susceptible to injury following concussion. The objective of this study was to determine whether contact play in sport could alter white matter metabolite levels in female varsity athletes independent of changes induced by long-term exercise. Metabolite levels were measured by single voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in the prefrontal white matter at the beginning (In-Season) and end (Off-Season) of season in contact (N = 54, rugby players) and non-contact (N = 23, swimmers and rowers) varsity athletes. Sedentary women (N = 23) were scanned once, at a time equivalent to the Off-Season …

Structure Of Population Activity In Primary Motor Cortex For Single Finger Flexion And Extension, Spencer A. Arbuckle, Jeff Weiler, Eric A. Kirk, Charles L. Rice, Marc Schieber, J. Andrew Pruszynski, Naveed Ejaz, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2020 the authors How is the primary motor cortex (M1) organized to control fine finger movements? We investigated the population activity in M1 for single finger flexion and extension, using 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in female and male human participants and compared these results to the neural spiking patterns recorded in two male monkeys performing the identical task. fMRI activity patterns were distinct for movements of different fingers, but were quite similar for flexion and extension of the same finger. In contrast, spiking patterns in monkeys were quite distinct for both fingers and directions, which is …

Cortico-Subcortical Functional Connectivity Profiles Of Resting-State Networks In Marmosets And Humans, Yuki Hori, David J. Schaeffer, Atsushi Yoshida, Justine C. Cléry, Lauren K. Hayrynen, Joseph S. Gati, Ravi S. Menon, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2020 the authors Understanding the similarity of cortico-subcortical networks topologies between humans and nonhuman primate species is critical to study the origin of network alternations underlying human neurologic and neuropsychiatric diseases. The New World common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) has become popular as a nonhuman primate model for human brain function. Most marmoset connectomic research, however, has exclusively focused on cortical areas, with connectivity to subcortical networks less extensively explored. Here, we aimed to first isolate patterns of subcortical connectivity with cortical resting-state networks in awake marmosets using resting-state fMRI, then to compare these networks with those in humans …

Organizational Change, Work Conditions And Professional Learning, A Case Study Of Nurses In Ontario, Elise Mcclenaghan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In professions, lifelong learning is essential to providing quality and safe services. Certain working conditions, including work intensification due to rationalization and organizational change, may inhibit professionals’ ability to learn on the job. This study adds to the literature surrounding informal learning that occurs on and off the job by exploring the impact working conditions and workplace change have on learning behaviours for nurses in Ontario, through the analysis of survey data. For a sample of nurses working in Ontario in 2016 it is found through a regression analysis that certain working conditions like experiencing discrimination, participating in policy related …

Agriculture, Food Security And Climate Change Panel, Andrew Walsh

Africa-Western Collaborations Day 2020

8 graduate student/recent graduate presentations on varying topics of agriculture, food security and climate change. Moderated by Dr. Andrew Walsh. Reporting of panel done by current GHS students of the 2021 class. Abstracts can be found under "Africa-Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts". Presenters as follows:

Daniel Amoak, "Coping Strategies of Agrarian Households"

Eunice Annan-Aggrey, "The Conundrum of Vanishing 'Gold' in the African Savannah"

Evans Batung, "Credit Access and Perceived Climate Change Resilience of Smallholder Farmers in semi-arid Northern Ghana"

Chengyu (Jennifer) Guo et al., "Production of Flavoured Fiti Probiotic Yoghurt for the London Community"

Daniel Kpienbaareh et al., "Estimating Yield …

Post-Secondary Education (Pse) Indigenous Students' Perspectives: Sharing Our Voices On How We Fit Into Residential School (Rs) History Of Canada And The United States Using Photovoice, Natahnee Winder

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A substantial body of literature about Indigenous experiences regarding the boarding school and residential school systems in the US and Canada, respectively, does exist. Both federal governments’ intentions were to Christianize, assimilate, and “civilize” students who attended these schools. Most Indigenous educational research is centered in either an American or Canadian context, and the colonial education of Indigenous peoples is rarely discussed as a collective experience. This colonial education occurred in tandem, in both countries, and its legacy severely impacted Indigenous students by separating them from their families and communities and stripping them of their Indigenous identities and lifeways. Furthermore, …

Characterizing A Novel Mobile Game Battery Assessment: A Comparison Of Performance-Based And Survey-Based Executive Functioning Instruments, Josephine A. Pham

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Exploratory characterization of a novel mobile game battery was conducted via a correlational comparison with a standardized assessment of executive functioning. Previous literature has shown that computer-based and survey-based instruments have either very weak correlation or no correlation at all – giving the impression that these instruments may not measure the same constructs of executive functioning. Findings from the current exploratory study demonstrated significant associations but weak correlational strength between tasks from the computer-based game battery and an updated standardized survey-based instrument. This confirmed a trend found in previous literature, demonstrating little overlap between both instruments in executive functioning measurement. …

Gender, Technology And Innovation In Health Care Panel, Melanie Katsivo

Africa-Western Collaborations Day 2020

8 graduate student/recent graduate presentations on gender, technology, and innovation in health care. Moderated by Dr. Melanie Katsivo. Reporting of panel done by current GHS students of the 2021 class. Abstracts can be found under "Africa-Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts". Presenters as follows:

Florence Wullo Anfaara, "To Include or Not to Include: Men and the Liberian Women's Peace Hut Initiatives Towards Transformational Justice"

Uche Ikenyei, "Diversification of Research Methodological Approach During Model Enhancements in Health Information System Research"

Denise Kamyuka, "Female Social Entrepreneurship in Sport, in the African Context: Systemic Review"

Ebenezer Martin-Yeboah, "Through the Lens of Egocentric Design: Do …

Education, Migration And Development Panel, Henri Boyi

Africa-Western Collaborations Day 2020

8 graduate students/recent graduate presentations on education, migration and development. Moderated by Dr. Henri Boyi. Reporting of panel done by current GHS students of the 2021 class. Abstracts can be found under "Africa-Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts". Presenters as follows:

Jemima Nomunume Baada, "Experiences of Social Reproduction among Migrant Women in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana"

Elmond Bandauko, "This is a Good Place to Live! Narratives and Counternarratives on Territorial Stigmatization in Harare's Informal Settlements"

Chinelo Ezenwa, "A History of 19th Century European Missionaries in Colonial Africa with Specific References to the Impact of Missionary Schools"

Rebecca Jackson, Jade Rozal, …

Energy Access And Extreme Heat Events: A Case Study Of Seniors In Ottawa, Ontario, Samantha N. Doris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Energy poverty, or not having access to sufficient energy to meet one’s needs, is a serious problem in Canada and around the world. While the current literature on energy poverty largely focuses on the experiences of people utilizing energy services to stay warm during cold winter temperatures, little is known about experiences of energy poverty during summertime heat. This gap is especially urgent since current climate models suggest that cities are likely to experience extreme heat conditions more frequently in the future. This research investigates how people use energy services, such as air conditioning and fans, among other strategies to …

Religion In Modern Sports Fanaticism: From Classical Antiquity To Online Sports Forums, Matthew Prokopiw

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In tracing the concept of religion to its theorization and study by French sociologist Émile Durkheim this dissertation presents concrete and abstract support for a commonly forwarded proposition: fanaticism of the modern spectacle of sports amounts to religiosity, characterized by a social logic of vitality and totemism, notably present as well in the ancient Roman spectacle and Greek agōn. Based in the contemporary theory of French sociologist Michel Maffesoli, following Durkheim and the study of the sacred by Le Collège de Sociologie, this dissertation contributes an immersive and critical investigation into the nascent but encompassing online dimension of fanaticism …

Making Sense Of Online Public Health Debates With Visual Analytics Systems, Anton Ninkov

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Online debates occur frequently and on a wide variety of topics. Particularly, online debates about various public health topics (e.g., vaccines, statins, cannabis, dieting plans) are prevalent in today’s society. These debates are important because of the real-world implications they can have on public health. Therefore, it is important for public health stakeholders (i.e., those with a vested interest in public health) and the general public to have the ability to make sense of these debates quickly and effectively. This dissertation investigates ways of enabling sense-making of these debates with the use of visual analytics systems (VASes). VASes are computational …

The Use Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based Photogrammetric Point Cloud Data For Winter Wheat Intra-Field Variable Retrieval And Yield Estimation In Southwestern Ontario, Yang Song

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Precision agriculture uses high spatial and temporal resolution soil and crop information to control the crop intra-field variability to achieve optimal economic benefit and environmental resources sustainable development. As a new imagery collection platform between airborne and ground measurements, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is used to collect high spatial resolution images at a user selected period for precision agriculture. Most studies extract crop parameters from the UAV-based orthomosaic imagery using spectral methods derived from the satellite and airborne based remote sensing. The new dataset, photogrammetric point cloud data (PCD), generated from the Structure from Motion (SfM) methods using the UAV-based …

Conscious Perception And Implicit Memory Formation Of A Narrative Presented During Sleep, Sarah E. Hollywood

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present study sought to determine the extent of conscious awareness and implicit memory formation of a narrative presented during sleep. Participants were played an excerpt of J.D. Salinger’s Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes while napping. Afterwards, participants completed a task designed to assess implicit memory to determine if they had formed any memories about words that were either directly stated in the story, or directly related to the plot. Participants who heard the story while asleep responded more quickly to words that had appeared in the story than to words from another story they had not heard. Exactly …

Examination Of Institutional Investment In The United States Of America From 1999 To 2018, Martin R. Lefebvre

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the evolution of spatial preference of institutional investors located in the United States of America for the time period of 1999 to 2018 using a mix of exploratory data analysis techniques and more sophisticated space-time and machine learning techniques such as ESRI Space-Time cube and Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling. This thesis concludes that despite having the appearance of a footloose industry due to almost negligible fixed costs, institutional investors are attracted to highly dynamic urban centres and on the 20 year time horizon, appear surprisingly sticky in their location preference. This is consistent with the belief …

Slimy Worms Or Sticky Kids: How Caregiving Tasks And Gender Identity Attenuate Disgust Response, Amanda Friesen, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz

Political Science Publications

Disgust is derived from evolutionary processes to avoid pathogen contamination. Theories of gender differences in pathogen disgust utilize both evolutionary psychological and sociocultural perspectives. Drawing on research that suggests that masculine and feminine gender identities are somewhat orthogonal, we examine how gender identity intersects with pathogen disgust. In addition, building on evolutionary psychological and socio- cultural accounts of how caregiving and parental investment affect pathogen disgust, we present a new measure of caregiving disgust and compare its properties across gender, parental status, and political ideology with those of a conventional pathogen disgust measure. This registered report finds that how masculinity …