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Gasping For Breath: Women’S Concerns And The Politics Of Community Development In Rural Ghana, Charles Gyan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This transnational feminist study described and interpreted the experiences of women within the context of community development in rural Ghana. The purpose of this study was to empirically ascertain the barriers faced by women within the community development processes in rural Ghana. With this goal, women from three randomly selected rural communities in Ghana were sampled and interviewed. A concurrent triangulation mixed method research design was adopted. The main instruments used were a questionnaire and an in-depth interview for the collection of the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. A total of two hundred women participated in the study.

The findings …

A Comparison Of The Stability & Pressure Distribution Between Young Adults And A Transtibial Amputee During Obstacle Crossing, Colin Kirst

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Falls are identified as the largest risk and leading cause of injury for multiple populations, including young adults and individuals with a transtibial amputation. Furthermore, obstacle crossing is identified as the number one cause of a trip, which subsequently leads to falling. Previous research provides conflicting results and a lack of specificity in certain outcome measures of dynamic stability during obstacle crossing. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to gain foundational knowledge on outcome measures related to dynamic stability during an obstacle crossing protocol. An additional purpose was to investigate the dynamic stability of young adults, and speculate on …

Tweeting Strategy: Military Social Media Use As Strategic Communication, Rupinder Mangat

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Many Western militaries now actively engage with various social media platforms. The starting point for my dissertation research was this question: how does the military use social media? Considering the Canadian Armed Forces’ use of Twitter as a case study, I collected over 14,000 tweets from four Twitter accounts of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force with some tweets as old as September 2012 and the most recent tweets from December 2015. I employed Grounded Theory Method to analyze these tweets, which revealed four themes — organization, history, …

Investigating The Roles Of Mechanoreceptive Channels In Tactile Apparent Motion Perception: A Vibrotactile Study, Phill Kim, Philip Servos Dr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Tactile apparent motion (TAM) is a perceptual phenomenon in which consecutive presentation of multiple tactile stimuli creates an illusion of motion. Employing a novel tactile display device, the Latero, allowed us to investigate this. The current study focused on the Rapidly Adapting (RA) channel and Slowly Adapting I (SAI) channel on the index finger. The experiment implemented vibrotactile masking stimuli to target the mechanoreceptive channels with the goal of gaining better insight into the involvement of mechanoreceptive channels in the perception of TAM. Masking stimuli were used because previous studies have used them to differentiate between different channels; a …

Examining The Effects Of Interleukin-6 On Appetite Regulatory Peptides In Lean And Obese Sedentary Males, Greg L. Mckie

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Acute moderate-intensity exercise transiently suppresses appetite via fluctuations in the appetite-regulatory peptides acylated ghrelin (AG), peptide tyrosine-tyrosine_3-36 (PYY_3-36), and active glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). Importantly, these effects do not lead to compensatory changes in energy intake in normal weight or obese individuals, highlighting the potential for exercise to induce acute energy deficits. One potential mechanism for these effects is increased post-exercise plasma concentrations of interleukin (IL)-6, as IL-6 has demonstrated appetite-inhibitory effects in animal and cell culture models. Given obesity is characterized by a state of chronic low-grade inflammation and associated with upregulated IL-6, this study sought to …

Charecterization Of The Innate Immune Response In The Rat Intervertebral Disc At The Tissue And Cellular Level, Matthew Guerreiro

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Low back pain (LBP) affects up to 80% of the global population at some point during their life. The costs associated with LBP are estimated at $100 billion per year, putting significant strains on our healthcare system. As intervertebral disc (IVD) herniation is one of the major causes of LBP we decided to focus on herniation facilitated inflammatory responses, where damage caused by herniation triggers an innate immune response which likely results in pain, inflammation, and recruitment of specialized innate immune cells like macrophages to the affected area. Since the role of the inflammatory response is relatively uncharacterized in the …

Assessing Job Seekers’ Attraction To Working In Green Buildings, Devon Fernandes

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research explores to what extent young job seekers are attracted to working in green buildings and the processes underlying their potential attraction. An exploratory sequential mixed methods design research is employed that involves two studies. In Study One, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with university students in southwestern Ontario who identified as young (18 – 25 years old) job seekers. Based on insights from the interviews, Study Two obtained responses from 273 young job seekers across Canada to an online survey about their attraction to green buildings. This research shows that green buildings on their own are not a …

The Fatigue-Associated Changes In Estimates Of Persistent Inward Current In Human Motor Neurons, Chris Compton

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Neuromuscular fatigue is associated with reduced supraspinal drive. Similarly, intracortical facilitation and muscle activation are reduced following concussion. Both fatigue and mild traumatic brain injury are associated with increased noradrenergic and serotonergic activity in animal models. Given that monoaminergic-dependent persistent inward currents (PIC) set spinal motor neuron (MN) gain, we speculate that PIC will increase during fatigue to compensate for supraspinal hypoexcitability and that this will be more pronounced in people with concussion. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to assess spinal MN excitability during fatigue in people with concussion and healthy controls. 20 participants (10 concussion, average age …

Gill Structure & Function In Parasitic And Non-Parasitic Lampreys: The Effects Of Metamorphosis And Freshwater-Seawater Transfer, Julia Sunga

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Lamprey (Petromyzontiformes) are a phylogenetically ancient group of jawless fishes that begin their lives as filter-feeding larvae (ammocoetes) before undergoing a complex metamorphosis into juvenile lamprey that involves major changes to their internal and external body plan. Some parasitic species, such as the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), migrate to sea following metamorphosis, where they use their oral discs and rasping tongue to attach to and ingest vast quantities of blood from fishes. Thus, sea lamprey have to counter the simultaneous challenges of hyposmoregulation in sea water and the generation of large quantities of ammonia due to the …

Indigenous-Black Identity: Two Manuscripts Concerning Indigenous-Black Identity, Identity Formation, Mental Health, And Trauma, Ann Marie Beals

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis was written in the form of two different, yet similar stand-alone manuscripts. The overall premise of my thesis was the exploration of Indigenous-Black identity – Indigenous to both Turtle Island and the continent of Africa. This introduction to the thesis is to give an overview of my work and the manuscripts, and to provide information that is relevant to the understanding of the thesis that may not necessarily be required for manuscripts that are to be submitted for publication. Manuscript one, titled Indigenous-Black Identity, Mental Health, and Trauma explored, as the title suggests, concepts of Indigenous-Black identity regarding …

Good Works And The Great Commission: An Exploration Of Religious Influence In Evangelical Faith-Based Organisations In Canada And India, Ravi Gokani

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

By the mid-1990s, the post-war, Keynesian welfare state that had typified much the landscape of service provision in North America had already begun seriously to corrode in the presence of a resurgent classical liberalism. This meant, among other things, an increased role for civil society organisations in the provision of social welfare to citizens in need. As part of this restructuring of the welfare state, faith-based organisations found a renewed place, bolstered in part by favourable legislation, political support, and the revival of a once-recluse evangelicalism. Today, with decades of maturity and the aide of technology, evangelical faith-based organisations are …

The Influence Of Water Quality On Wetland-Associated Microbial Communities, Lindsey Clairmont

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Within a wetland environment, bacteria in association with plant roots play a vital role in maintaining the health of freshwater ecosystems. In order to gain insight into the stability and processes occurring within natural and constructed wetland environments we need to develop a better understanding of the relationship between wetland plants, root-associated microbial communities and environmental factors. Human population growth and urbanization have resulted in greater contaminant loads (inorganic nutrients, fecal contamination etc.) entering our waterways. As such, we need a better understanding of how anthropogenic impacts influence the structure and function of the wetland-associated microbial communities that we rely …

Moral Identity Development Across Middle Childhood And Adolescence, Sonia Sengsavang

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In moral psychology, moral identity has been viewed as a central explanatory construct in moral development linking morality and action. However, less is known about its development across the lifespan. The present dissertation aimed to address the limitations of previous research by using the personological approach to better understand how the multifaceted construct of moral identity develops from the understudied period of middle childhood to adolescence. The dissertation is separated into three chapters that can be considered as three research topics framed within one study tapping into the different layers of moral identity (see Krettenauer & Hertz, 2015). All chapters …

Bas Bleus, Divorceuses, Deceitful Prostitutes Or “Live Allegories” Of Change? Parisian Working-Class Women And The Revolution Of 1848, Natasha A. Gardonyi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis acts as both a history of the roles that Parisian working-class women played as writers, society members and insurgents during the revolutionary year of 1848, and an analysis of why they were vilified in the press as bas-bleus, divorceuses, deceitful prostitutes and more extensively as the individuals responsible for the failure of the revolution. It argues that women became “live allegories” of the changes that Paris was experiencing in the first half of the nineteenth century, particularly when a small minority of women radicalized from late April to June. These women galvanized anxieties that men and the upper …

The Complexity Of Canadian Anti-Communism, 1945-1967, Ian Muller

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation argues that the history of anti-communism in English Canada between 1945 and 1967 is more diverse and complicated than traditionally acknowledged. Often dispersed throughout the scholarship as elements of other Cold War topics, including espionage, state surveillance, and policing, anti-communism is the central subject of this investigation. A series of case studies are used to analyze individual encounters with the state and civic engagement with the domestic threat of communism. The unique politico-cultural approach of this dissertation will bolster Canada’s Cold War historiography by investigating both public and private manifestations of anti-communism.

The intersections of public safety, the …

An Assessment Of The Plant And Mycorrhizal Community At Steeves Lake Shoreline, Colomac Mine, Nwt, Rebekah Hamp, Dr. Kevin Stevens

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study focused on the environmental impacts of mining and potential techniques to mitigate them. The goals of this study were to (1) Quantify vegetation and fungal colonization at a remediated mine site in northern Canada, and to determine if there were effects from petroleum hydrocarbon contamination, (2) Determine the response of northern plants inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi to diesel contamination. Mycorrhizal colonization was observed in field collected roots and trends in colonization and vegetation cover suggested that these communities were no longer impacted by residual contamination. Mean hyphal colonization of Elymus trachycaulus roots collected over two years was 47.3±3.8% …

“Inconvenient Neighbours, Whom It Was Desirable Ultimately Wholly To Remove”: Differing Factors In The Dispossessions Of Studied Anishinaabe Groups Of The Great Lakes Basin, 1820-1865, Heather J. Sanguins

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Despite being located within a relatively close geographic area, the Anishinaabeg of the eastern Great Lakes basin had different experiences of, and responses to, attempted and actual dispossession between 1820 and 1865. This research explores these experiences and the exercise of colonial power through the dispossession of six groups: the Lake Erie Anishinaabeg, the Walpole Anishinaabeg, the “American” Anishinaabeg who migrated into Upper Canada and Canada West, the Chippewa of Lakes Huron, Couchiching, and Simcoe, the Potaganasee Ojibwa of Drummond Island, and the Manitoulin Anishinaabeg. While eight themes weave their way through the cases, every case of attempted or actual …

Dynamic Balance Control And Segmental Orientation While Listening During Walking: Effects Of Age And Hearing Loss, Sin Tung Lau

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Dynamic control of balance changes with age and changes with declines in sensory and cognitive abilities. For instance, emerging, yet robust associations between hearing loss and poor mobility have been described and yet the mechanism underlying these associations remains unknown. It could be that age-related declines in hearing ability result in different kinematic strategies when having to walk and listen at the same time (e.g. head and body orienting responses toward sounds) and/or that declines in hearing result in increased cognitive load during listening, at the detriment to mobility-related performance. Therefore, this thesis sought to better characterize these associations by …

Defence In Depth: An Anatomy Of Containment From Quarantine To Resilience, Jessica West

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation investigates the logic of resilience as a prevailing mode of national security. Struck more by its familiarity than its novelty, I turn my attention to public health as a way of better understanding what resilience does and how it works. Using interpretive methods to read resilience theoretically as a function of complex systems and concretely as a set of homeland security policy practices in the United States, I situate the emergence and implementation of resilience as a redeployment of long-standing motifs and modes of “containment,” recast as an immune system. Specifically, I claim: 1) containment is a spatial …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Online Self-Harm Support Forums: Examining Users’ Online Activities During Self-Harm Desistance Processes, Claudia Volpe

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Non- suicidal self-injury, commonly referred to as NSSI, is defined as the damage of one’s body tissue through the practices of, but not limited to, cutting, burning, branding, bone-breaking, biting, hair pulling and head banging (Adler & Adler, 2011), without suicidal intent (Lewis & Mehrabkhani, 2016). Self-harm literature has primarily focused on persistence processes and NSSI-related online interaction in the maintenance of pro self-harm ideology and practice. Alternatively, this research will provide insight into desistance processes of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and related online interactions by conducting a virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000) of open, online spaces, consistent with the symbolic interactionist …

Police Use Of Twitter: 21st Century Community Policing, Nicole Coomber

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

With the advancement of social media platforms like Twitter increasingly being woven into the everyday activities of society members, police services, in an attempt to stay relevant and reflective, have begun adopting Twitter into their work initiatives. The present study examines the perceptions Canadian police officers regarding their use of Twitter as a community policing tool. Through semi-structured interviews with police officers and administrative staff operating official police Twitter accounts, and constructivist grounded theorizing, this research provides an in-depth examination of the perceptions of police officers who use Twitter as a part of community policing initiatives. Specifically, the study explores …

The Great And Widening Divide: Political False Polarization And Its Consequences, Victoria Parker

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

American politics is becoming increasingly ideologically divided, and this cross-party hostility is reflected in pronounced partisan media outrage. However, while actual ideological polarization has indeed been rising, people estimate an ideological gap as being even larger than reality. We focus on whether part of this cross-party dislike can be explained by illusory perceptions of opposing party attitudes, attitudes the majority of the party members do not actually endorse. This illusory gap is referred to as false polarization; it is an interpersonal bias where a perceiver believes an opponent’s position is much farther away conceptually from where that opponent actually reports …

Near-Surface Permafrost Ground Ice Characteristics And Ecological And Physical Drivers Of Transient Layer Ice Content In Discontinuous Permafrost, Jason Paul

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Accelerated climate warming in northern regions is causing permafrost degradation, leading to the reduction of the areal extent of permafrost. Permafrost is the foundation for many northern ecosystems and communities, so its thaw can have important ecological and societal consequences. Thaw of ice-rich permafrost can cause subsidence of the ground surface proportional to excess ice content. Terrain settlement can cause ponding or damage to infrastructure. Following a surface disturbance that removes much of the vegetation cover, a shift in the ground thermal regime can cause an increase in active layer thickness and rapid thaw of the top portion of permafrost. …

Attending To The Needs Of Inuit Inmates In Canada: Exploring The Perceptions Of Correctional Officers And Nunavut Officials, Kosta H. Barka

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

On March 10, 2015, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada released a performance audit concluding that the Nunavut Department of Justice did not adequately plan for and operate facilities to house inmates and did not adequately manage inmates in compliance with key rehabilitation and reintegration requirements. Given the room for improvement and my prior experience working with Nunavut Corrections, I embarked on a qualitative research project that sought to interview inmates in Nunavut Corrections about their perceptions of rehabilitation programs offered in Makigiarvik Healing Facility. Although university ethics approval was received for the research, I encountered resistance when …

Boundaries Of Fostering Happiness: Implicit Theories Of Happiness Predict Reactions To Positive Psychological Interventions, Esther Abel

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs) are activities designed to facilitate greater psychological well-being through building cognitive and behavioural habits and skills (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). However, there may be individual differences that play a role in the effect PPIs have. The present research evaluated how individuals’ implicit theories regarding happiness as being controllable or not controllable (Howell, Passmore, & Holder, 2016) may predict their responses to and participation in PPIs, and in turn if those beliefs may be linked to the positive outcomes of the activities. In four online studies, the relationship between implicit theories of happiness and PPIs …

Girls’ Voices Of The Eighteenth Century: The Development Of A Genre For Young Female Readers, 1740-1800, Sarah Rangaratnam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Just as they do today, adolescent girls functioned as a cultural force in the eighteenth century, and it was commercially viable for authors and publishers to attract and sustain the attention of these teenaged readers. Girls’ Voices of the Eighteenth Century: The Development of a Genre for Young Female Readers, 1740-1800, examines how four female authors leveraged elements of fairy tales, romances and gothic fiction, and developed dialogue and humour in their texts, to reflect the interests and literary awareness of their target audience of adolescent girls. My study begins with an investigation of the legacy of early French fairy …

Criminal Heroes In Television: Exploring Moral Ambiguity In Law And Justice, Amy Henry

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Criminal justice is a popular theme in both news and entertainment media. How crime and justice issues are framed can actually legitimize corruption in a society. As research reveals the public’s dissatisfaction with the current failing retributive justice system, popular television series’ are confronting its flaws (Jerre, 2013). Utilizing a cultural criminological and social constructionist orientation, the following research examines anti-hero narratives in two highly rated crime-drama series, Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy. The main research questions examine: How the criminal protagonist or anti-hero is constructed in television crime procedurals? What claims about crime, criminality, law and justice …

Venus In The Trenches: The Treatment Of Venereal Disease In The Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, Lyndsay Rosenthal

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the treatment of venereal disease (VD) in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). The Canadians had one of the highest rates of infection during the war with 15.8 per cent of servicemen being diagnosed with VD. These figures generated concern among Canadian officials about the negative impact this could have on both public health and opinion. Overseas officials needed to develop policies and procedures to control the spread of the disease. When strict disciplinary measures did little to address the issue, the military experimented with more lenient ones rooted in science and medicine. Even with these measures in …

A Qualitative Study Of Families’ Experiences With Food Insecurity In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Elias Omer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Ethiopia has shown considerable progress in alleviating the decades-long food insecurity problem, but still, in the context of urban areas such as Addis Ababa families continue to struggle to make ends meet. The overall purpose of this research is to explore families’ lived experiences and coping mechanisms with food insecurity. Framed with the narrative-empowerment theoretical framework this ethnographic study outlines the findings of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion of 35 adults and children and observational notes. Participants were able to tell their perception, causes, and impacts of food insecurity in their families. They outlined the daily strategies they employ …

Human-Like Behavior And Cognition: Not A Good Starting Point, Magnus Helgheim Blystad

Animal Sentience

Chapman & Huffman make use of observations and studies that show how humans may not be as unique in our behaviour and cognition as previously thought. I wholeheartedly agree that our uniqueness might be small and that if it exists, it should not give our species any right to act cruelly towards other animals. However, this kind of logic can be problematic. I present a few of the issues in this commentary.