Digital Commons Network^™

Thermokarst Can Stimulate Tall Shrub Productivity And Plant-Soil Feedbacks In The Low-Arctic Tundra, Claire O'Brien

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Warming temperatures are exacerbating permafrost thaw disturbances in the Arctic. Permafrost thaw disturbances are facilitating tall, deciduous shrub expansion. However, potential productivity differences between shrubs that colonize disturbed areas and those in undisturbed tundra remain understudied. More productive shrubs optimize for fast growth over leaf longevity, meaning they may produce more abundant and higher quality litter which could accelerate decomposition rates and lead to faster nutrient cycling. Faster nutrient cycling could create a positive feedback loop between shrubs and soil, maintaining greater ecosystem productivity. I measured in situ soil characteristics and physiological and structural shrub functional traits for green alder …

The Divine Invitation To Co-Creation: The Effects Of Creative Practice On The Vocation Of Clergy In The Anglican Church Of Canada, Dawn Dickieson-Leger

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Creative practice has been confirmed as having benefits for health and well-being for people as well as an effective spiritual practice aiding in discernment. Clergy find their purpose in their sense of vocation, often formed and discerned in the context of seeking ordination. The researcher, an Anglican priest and amateur artist, presents a renewed idea of vocation as co-creation with God by engaging in creative practice. Throughout the dissertation she offers reflections from her own experiences in art, health recovery, and ministry. Fifteen Anglican clergy were interviewed about their vocation, ministry, and creative practice. Each of these clergy met the …

International Students Practicing Their Wellbeing: Social Connections And Use Of Professional Mental Health Services, Lal Ruby Atesoglu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

International students are a growing group of immigrants in Canada, and in particular in Ontario. Literature has consistently showed that international students experience unique mental health challenges, with reasons ranging from uncertainty about the future to having to cultivate social networks from scratch. Despite these stressors, they access professional mental health services at a lower rate than domestic students. Research has also shown that international students turn to their social connections to address their mental health concerns frequently. The aim of this study is to explore how international students utilize professional mental health services as well as their social connections …

To Encounter The Other? How Journalists Make Catholic Faith-Based Organizations In Mexico And Russia (In)Visible, Xochiquetzal Luna Morales

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Catholic Faith-Based Organizations (CFBOs) in Mexico and Russia are unique entities of study and comparison to understand the power dynamics between majority/minority institutional religions and their media representation. Although both countries recognize their religious diversity, Catholicism is still the major religion in Mexico, not only because of its large number of adherents but also its significant cultural and political capital. In contrast, in Russia, Catholicism is considered a minority religion and is often viewed as foreign to Russian values and traditions. These conditions influence how CFBOs have been featured in the news media in both countries. However, no single factors …

Multi-Lingual And Cross-Domain Frontiers In Machine-Generated Content Detection, Gurunameh Singh Chhatwal

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 and their multilingual capabilities, has significantly blurred the distinction between human-authored and machine-generated content. This technological evolution introduces critical challenges concerning the detection and attribution of textual authenticity and authorship, exacerbating societal issues like misinformation proliferation and compromising academic and professional integrity. Traditional detection methodologies, predominantly monolingual and heuristic-based, have demonstrated inadequate generalizability and efficacy against the sophisticated, multilingual capabilities of contemporary generative models.

This thesis addresses two major problems arising from these advancements. Firstly, it introduces novel multilingual detection methodologies explicitly designed to differentiate …

Optimizing Electric Vehicle Charging And Energy Consumption: Routing, Booking, And Real-Time Traffic Integration, Md Shahed Hossen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Modern transportation has been revolutionized by smart technology and vehicle automation, and electric vehicles (EVs) are essential to developing connected, eco-friendly, and effective mobility solutions. Green transportation promotion is more crucial than ever as smart cities develop. With their zero emissions and ability to integrate with smart infrastructure, EVs are central to reducing pollution and supporting sustainable travel. However, challenges like efficient route planning, charging management, and travel cost still hinder widespread EV adoption. Overcoming these issues is essential to fully realizing the benefits of EVs in future smart cities. Continued innovation in intelligent routing systems, real-time traffic analysis, and …

Don’T Stop Believin’: Emotion Beliefs And Daily Affective Experiences Across Adulthood, Jocelyn A. Rutledge

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Emotion control beliefs reflect the extent to which people believe emotions “should” and “can” be controlled and have been linked to psychological well-being. Research has yet to examine age-related differences in these beliefs and their daily associations with affective experiences. The present study examines age differences in daily emotion control beliefs and their within-person associations with positive and negative affect. The study used 14-day daily diary data from an adult lifespan community sample (younger adults: 18-36 years old, N = 72; older adults: 66-92 years old, N = 66). The results revealed that older adults reported …

Battling Oppression And Crafting New Identities: Case Study Of The Woman, Life, Freedom Movement In Canada, Kiana Habibagahi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom movement began in 2022, and Canada’s Iranian diaspora– the second-largest globally–continues to mobilise advocacy initiatives in its support. However, no studies have examined the movement’s implications on identity individually or collectively. These gaps fail to recognise the experiences of Iranian peoples in Canada who care deeply for the movement and have been historically marginalised. As such, using a qualitative and arts-based method, my project facilitates the retelling of experiences of young adult advocates (n = 4) in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Specifically, I inquired about the perceived development of their collective identities as advocates, along …

Weight Stigma In Health-Related Undergraduate Programs, Alicia Rodney

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Health-related undergraduate programs are common pathways for future health care providers and play a critical role in shaping attitudes toward weight, as biases formed during training often carry over into professional practice. While weight stigma (WS) has been examined among practicing professionals and medical students, little is known about how it is experienced by undergraduate students in different health-related programs, particularly across the weight spectrum. This qualitative study contributes to closing this gap by exploring and comparing how students in one kinesiology and one health sciences program experience WS within an academic setting.

Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis, open-ended survey responses …

“We’Re Here, We’Re Queer, And We’Re Not Going Away” Student Policies And Lgbtq+ Students’ Experiences On Canadian Christian Campuses, Angela E. Gallo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Research highlights that Christian campuses are often unwelcoming and hostile spaces for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other gender and sexually diverse (LGBTQ+) students. Yet, research, including emerging Canadian research, often overlooks how institutional policies shape LGBTQ+ students’ experiences. Further, little attention is given to the affirming experiences LGBTQ+ students encounter on Christian campuses. Through a collective case study of two Canadian Christian universities involving document analysis and interviews, I explored the discourses that school policies constructed concerning gender and sexuality, LGBTQ+ students’ experiences of exclusion and affirmation, and how policy, alongside other factors, shapes their experiences and well-being. …

Neighbourhood Resilience Planning With Renters In Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Anna Do

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This sequential mixed-methods study demonstrates the co-production of knowledge between academic researchers and local communities. Guided by the resilience planning framework, the study engaged 48 renters from the Beasley neighbourhood of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in identifying stressful and supportive locations using a participatory mapping tool called the “Place Report.” A total of 74 Place Reports were submitted, with most reporting supportive places in or near Beasley. Thematic analysis revealed three overarching domains, and 13 themes related to the use and function of these locations. Places pertaining to food, housing, and physical activity emerged as the most frequently discussed topics. The …

Legislating Trans Lives: An Archival Analysis On Trans Canadian Rights, Charlie E. C. Davis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Previous research has outlined trans histories within the United States and Europe, illustrating historic transphobia, oppression and the origins of gender identity clinics. This type of historical literature is limited in the Canadian context, with more contemporary research demonstrating that trans people experience significant barriers to accessing healthcare, aversive health outcomes, and high rates of discrimination. Trans activists and advocates have always been and continue to resist these oppressive systems and have worked to improve the social and physical wellbeing of trans people in Canada. Utilizing archival data of trans activism and community mobilizing, I sought to address the gap …

Re-Imagining Care For Aging Disabled Adults, Caitlin L. Tizzard

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In Ontario, the landscape of aging is shaped by ageist and ableist ideologies that view older disabled adults through the lens of decline and dependency. Much of the current discourse on aging focuses on reforming long-term care (LTC), reinforcing institutional and carceral responses both within policy and academic imagination. This qualitative study takes a different approach by asking participants how care for aging disabled adults can be reimagined beyond institutionalization. Grounded in intersectional feminist, disability justice and abolitionist praxis, and using a critical transformative paradigm, this research employed Appreciative Inquiry across three focus groups with four participants engaged in aging-related …

Exploring Laurier Health Sciences Students’ Knowledge Of Lgbtq+ Health, Grace Emma Henry, Todd Coleman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In all health-related fields, the need for well-informed, holistic healthcare providers is paramount. For the heathcare field to be impactful in positive ways, providers should emerge from multifaceted academic backgrounds, equipped with an array of knowledge and skills to address the complex needs of different patients. Central to this is the idea that all aspects of an individual's identity and the intersectionality of these identities should be considered when providing care. Intersectionality recognizes that various social and personal identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status, intersect to shape individual experiences and health outcomes (Kelly et al., 2022).

Lesbian, …

Translating And Retranslating Sarmiento’S Facundo, Gabriel González Núñez

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

This study seeks to contribute to a gap in our understanding of retranslations through a case study, specifically one that focuses on Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s Facundo. This book, widely held to be a Latin American literary classic and cultural touchstone, took shape in the late nineteenth century. It was translated from the Spanish into English by Mary Peabody Mann in 1868 and Kathleen Ross in 2003, providing a rare instance of a retranslated work of Latin American thought. The present study will specifically focus on two aspects of retranslation: production and reception. It will consider production by focusing on the …

Respiratory Monitoring With Textile Inductive Electrodes In Driving Applications: Effect Of Electrode's Positioning And Form Factor On Signal Quality, James Elber Duverger, Victor Bellemin, Geordi-Gabriel Renaud Dumoulin, Patricia Forcier, Justine Decaens, Ghyslain Gagnon, Alireza Saidi

Études primaires

This paper provides insights into where and how to integrate textile inductive electrodes into a car to record optimal-quality respiratory signals. Electrodes of various shapes and sizes were integrated into the seat belt and the seat back of a driving simulator car seat. The electrodes covered various parts of the body: upper back, middle back, lower back, chest, and waist. Three subjects completed driving circuits with their breathing signals being recorded. In general, signal quality while driving versus sitting still was similar, compared to a previous study of ours with no body movements. In terms of positioning, electrodes on seat …

Tackling Paradoxes And Double Binds For A Healthier Workplace: Insights From The Early Covid-19 Responses In Quebec And Ontario, Daniel Côté, Amelia León, Ai-Thuy Huynh, Jessica Dubé, Ellen Maceachen, Pamela Hopwood, Marie Laberge, Samantha Meyer, Meghan K. Crouch, Joyceline Amoako

Études primaires

The urgency of managing the COVID-19 health crisis in workplaces led to tensions, work overload, and confusion about preventive measures. This study presents a secondary analysis of qualitative data on paradoxes and double binds (PDBs) experienced by precarious essential workers in Canada who interacted with the public and their supervisors. Based on 13 interviews from a larger qualitative dataset, we examine how workers navigated public health recommendations and organisational demands during the pandemic. Findings reveal multiple organisational and managerial PDBs—both COVID-19-related and pre-existing—that contributed to psychological distress and compromised well-being. We argue that PDBs represent a significant occupational health hazard …

Loma Linda Nurse - Vol. 33, Loma Linda University School Of Nursing

Loma Linda Nurse

FEATURES

4 | The Strategic Pillars of LLUSN

6 | Building Campaign Update

8 | Scholarship Opportunities

10 | Andreia Lofthouse: Assistant Dean of Student & Alumni Relations

LLUSN HIGHLIGHTS

12-17 | ALUMNI NEWS

18-27 | ACADEMICS

28-32 | HOMECOMING

33-35 | FACULTY UPDATES

Optical Properties Of Rare Earth Doped Molybdenum Trioxide Thin Films, Jessica Fink

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This study aims to investigate the optical properties of Dy-doped MoO₃ thin films. MoO₃ is a transition metal oxide that is wide band gap semiconductor. As a transition-metal oxide, it has been widely studied for its tunable properties. However, there is little literature on the subject of Dysprosium doped MoO₃, and none found as of now on thin film Dy-MoO₃ . This indicates that this topic is at best under reported, and thin film Dy-MoO₃ possesses a certain novelty. Unlike most transition metal oxides, undoped MoO₃ has a negligible crystal field splitting. This is due to the electron vacancy of …

Predicting Real Estate Prices Using Deep Learning Regression Models On Socio Spatial Data, Gentle Engworo

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Cities keep their own kind of ledger. Every block, bus stop, corner store, and year that slips by leaves a small entry about what homes are worth. That ledger is what we call socio-spatial data: simple facts about what a home is (its age), where it sits (latitude/longitude), how easy it is to get around (distance to the nearest MRT station), what’s nearby (number of convenience stores), and when it sold (transaction date). This thesis asks a practical question in that everyday language: given these common clues, can we predict home prices more accurately and explain why? Using 414 …

The Great Writ Of Popular Sovereignty, William M.M. Kamin

Scholarly Articles

American habeas corpus, long conventionally known as the Great Writ of Liberty, is more properly understood as the Great Writ of Popular Sovereignty—a tool for We the People to insist that when our agents in government exercise our delegated penal powers, they remain faithful to our sovereign will. Once we grasp this conceptual shift, the implications for the law of habeas are profound.

In the past fifteen years, novel archival research has shown the Great Writ of Liberty’s founding myth to be ahistorical—that ideas about sovereignty, rather than individual liberty, drove the common-law writ’s development in the centuries of English …

Culpable Kids, Cara H. Drinan

Scholarly Articles

When a child commits a crime, how do states determine if that child is culpable? There are procedural rules that determine the forum for a minor’s trial and doctrines that limit children’s exposure to the most severe sentencing. But when it comes to culpability, states employ the same substantive law whether the defendant is 50 or 15. As this Article explains, that approach is profoundly flawed. In the early 21st century, in a series of cases known as the Miller trilogy, the United States Supreme Court established that youth are fundamentally different from adults and state sentencing practices must recognize …

Associational Rights Versus Nonprofit Transparency: Information Reporting In The Internet Age, Roger Colinvaux

Scholarly Articles

For decades, the nation’s charitable and nonprofit organizations have been required to file an information return, known as the Form 990, with the Internal Revenue Service. Congress mandates that the return be made publicly available. Such information reporting, both to the IRS and to the public, is the cornerstone of the federal government’s approach to assuring that nonprofit organizations are legally compliant. The Supreme Court’s decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (APF), however, casts a shadow on the constitutionality of nonprofit reporting requirements. In APF, the Court held unconstitutional California’s effort to require charities to …

Children And Chairs, Artifacts And Reality, Adam J. Macleod

Scholarly Articles

Where do children come from? The source of childhood—either nature or political will—is a matter not merely of chronology but of authority. Whoever makes children gets to define childhood. Legal childhood is one type of legal personhood. Legal personhood matters because legal persons bear legal rights and duties. Rights and duties direct how we act toward each other. Thus, our ideas about how persons come to be, who counts as a person, and how persons are defined in law determine in large part how we act toward persons, both other persons and ourselves.

A legal person is an artifact of …

A Workable Common Law Baseline For Regulatory Takings, Adam J. Macleod

Scholarly Articles

Rights to use property are property rights. The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires governments to provide just compensation when they take property. In our constitutional republic, legislatures are competent to change the law, and legal changes sometimes alter private rights, including use rights. The Takings Clause does not forbid such legal changes. It only requires compensation for property rights taken as a result. To give use rights the constitutional protection that the Takings Clause requires, courts need a baseline of rightful property use to show when a change in the law that adversely affects use rights amounts to …

How A Theory Can Make A Difference, Marc O. Degirolami

Scholarly Articles

Professor Sherif Girgis argues in his rich Lecture that originalism as a theory of constitutional law sometimes still makes a difference, but sometimes no longer does. The difference originalism once purported to make can no longer be defended because originalism has become far closer to its onetime nemesis—common law constitutionalism—than it once was, or once was thought to be. The difference that originalism still makes is real, Professor Girgis says, but is difficult to quantify or theorize. The Lecture is punctuated with genial insight about the academy and the courts, but it concludes on a doleful note: originalism just does …

Development Of Cyan And Blue Thermostable Fluorescent Proteins: Characterization And Structural Analysis, Acacia J. Jurkowski

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Fluorescent proteins are commonly used as cell markers in living organisms. Modifications by mutation can be used to improve the qualities of these proteins including fluorescence, thermostability, pH stability, and chemical stability. The goal of this project is to use mutagenesis to improve the fluorescence of thermostable cyan and blue proteins derived from the thermal green protein (TGP). The first cyan protein developed by the DeVore lab (CTP 0.0) shifted the fluorescence to cyan but decreased the quantum yield (Φ_F) to 0.056. Further mutations were incorporated to increase the quantum yield through incorporating hydrogen bonding interactions to the …

Effect Of Reduction Annealing On The Structural And Electrical Properties Of Α-Moo3 Thin Films, Sandipani Ghosh

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

2D layered molybdenum oxide has attracted significant research interest due to its tuneable bandgap and diverse structural, chemical, electrical, and optical properties influenced by growth parameters and synthesis techniques. In this study, the effects of reduction annealing on the structural and electrical properties of few-layer MoO₃ thin films, deposited on Si/SiO₂ substrates via pulsed laser deposition, were investigated. X-ray diffraction revealed nanocrystalline structures with a preferred (020) orientation, reduction annealing produced highly crystalline orthorhombic α-MoO₃ with reduced unit cell volume. FESEM/EDS provided detailed analyses of microstructures and elemental compositions. Raman spectroscopy confirmed the orthorhombic structure, with characteristic peaks at 667, …

Restoration Of Giant River Cane (Arundinaria Gigantea) In Southwest Missouri, Lyndsey D. Rightnowar

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Giant river cane (Arundinaria gigantea), a native bamboo species, once dominated riparian landscapes across the southeastern United States but has declined to approximately 2% of its historic range. This study evaluated restoration techniques for giant cane in southwest Missouri by examining the influence of rhizome source (putative genotype), planting type, and restoration site on restoration success. I compared two planting types: greenhouse-to-field (G2F) transplanting, where rhizomes were first propagated in the greenhouse before planting, and field-to-field (F2F) transplanting, where rhizomes were directly transplanted from source canebrakes to restoration sites. Rhizomes were collected from four existing canebrakes in Taney …

The Mythic Seeds Of Human Rights, Joshua Mackenzie Luna

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In this thesis, I propose a causal relationship between ancient societies’ mythic corpuses and their law codes. I begin by presenting the histories and historiographies of ancient Israel and Mesopotamia to highlight important themes in their development. Then, I place their creation and flood myths side-by-side for comparison, yielding key differences in the way each group conceptualizes human form, value, and purpose. Once these key differences have been established, I compare each group’s set of slave laws to demonstrate how each law code remains philosophically consistent with its respective set of myths and diametrically opposed to the set from the …