Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

On Polysemy: A Philosophical, Psycholinguistic, And Computational Study, Jiangtian Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Most words in natural languages are polysemous, that is they have related but different meanings in different contexts. These polysemous meanings (senses) are marked by their structuredness, flexibility, productivity, and regularity. Previous theories have focused on some of these features but not all of them together. Thus, I propose a new theory of polysemy, which has two components. First, word meaning is actively modulated by broad contexts in a continuous fashion. Second, clustering arises from contextual modulations of a word and is then entrenched in our long term memory to facilitate future production and processing. Hence, polysemous senses are entrenched …

Investigating Children's Experiences And Participation In A Free Community-Based Physical Activity Program: The Grade 5 Act-I-Pass, Emma E. Ostermeier

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Physical activity is an important component of children’s health and development; however, a majority of Canadian children are not meeting the physical activity recommendations. This thesis aimed to identify the factors that influenced children’s enrollment and participation in a free community-based physical activity program, the Grade 5 ACT-i-Pass (G5AP). This thesis consisted of two individual, but interrelated studies. First, focus groups with G5AP participants were used to explore the factors that influenced children’s perceived physical activity levels and participation in the program. Second, a spatially-targeted promotional campaign was developed and implemented to help evaluate the impact of promotions on program …

Assessment Instruments And Basic Personality Underpinnings Of Hypersexuality, Stephanie L. Montgomery-Graham

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Despite rejection of the Hypersexual Disorder (HD) diagnosis from DSM-5, individuals continue to present clinically with feelings of out-of-control sexual behaviour, clinicians continue to treat “sexual addiction,” and researchers continue to study HD-type symptomology. To further investigation of the HD construct, Levaque and colleagues (2016) used common HD assessment measures and found that between 16.7% and 37.8% of young adult males met clinically significant scores for HD. Phase one of this dissertation replicated the surprising finding in a North American community sample and furthered the research by testing the assessment tool used in DSM-5 HD field trials, and the first …

Weaving The Braid Of Culturally Responsive Leadership Within Policy And Governance To Improve Indigenous Student Success, Shelly L. Niemi

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) explores a Problem of Practice (PoP) that highlights the need for why the Board of Education and the Senior Administration team within the Raven Bay School Division (RBSD, pseudonym) would benefit from using a culturally responsive leadership approach when making decisions and how this may be achieved through policy and governance to guide their practice. The goal of this OIP is to examine why this leadership approach would be relevant for the Board of Education and the Senior Leadership team when they are making any policy and governance decisions, as it relates to Indigenous …

Evidence Informed Strategy To Improve Organizational Learning Engagement, Glenn G. Barton

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

The ability of an organization to effectively learn and apply knowledge not only equates with highly agile performance, it is increasingly important to surviving in a knowledge based economy. Organizational learning has been widely popularized in recent decades, however defining, coordinating, and maximizing this collective learning capability within organizations remains challenging. In part this difficulty may lie in conflicted views about the purposes of learning and who it benefits, varied ways in which learning or leading it can happen, and most importantly in employee’s different motivations to engage in learning at all. This plan examines organizational learning engagement and targets …

Renewable-Energy Resources, Economic Growth And Their Causal Link, Yiyang Chen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the presence and strength of predictive causal relationship between re-newable energy prices and economic growth. We look for evidence by investigating the cases of Norway, New Zealand, and Canada’s two provinces of Alberta and Ontario. The usual vectorautoregressive model (VAR) and its various improved versions still assume constant parametersover time. We devise a Markov-switching VAR (MS-VAR) model in order to accommodate the observed time-dependent causal relation changes. Our proposed modelling approach is induced by the hidden Markov model methodologies in terms of an online parameter estimationthrough recursive filtering. The parameters of the MS-VAR model are governed by …

The Role Of Neural Entrainment In Statistical Learning, Jordan-Jerrica Mulgrew

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Statistical learning (SL) refers to our ability to extract patterns from the environment. Research has long acknowledged the importance of SL in language; however, the neural mechanisms underlying SL remain largely unknown. One potential mechanism is neural entrainment, which refers to the tendency of endogenous neural oscillations to align with an ongoing rhythmic stimulus. In the context of SL, neural entrainment may align neural excitability to the ongoing structure of the speech stream, increasing sensitivity to underlying patterns and supporting the learning of word boundaries. This thesis tested the hypothesis that neural entrainment plays a causal role in SL by …

Fanning The Flames Of Disaster: The Role Colonialism Plays In The Impact Of Wildfire On Indigenous People In Northern Alberta, Alana K. Kehoe

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research contributes to the anthropology of disaster, offering an ethnographic account of the impact of wildfire on Indigenous people in northern Alberta. The vulnerability created by remote environmental locations is increased by social, historical, and economic circumstances. Based on ethnographic data including participant observation and interviews collected over 3 months of fieldwork in the summer of 2019, I argue that colonialism, assimilation policies, racism and structural violence increase vulnerability of Indigenous people and communities to the impacts of wildfire. By looking at wildfire situations holistically this study supports arguments for decolonization and other policy changes that would reduce the …

Examining Geographic And Social Barriers To Hiv Treatment Adherence In Kampala, Uganda, Gabrielle Bruser

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

With the rapid expansion of HIV treatment programs across sub-Saharan Africa, substantial progress has been made towards universal treatment accessibility in Uganda; however, new healthcare challenges have been emerging, such as the development of drug-resistant HIV, which threaten to undermine achievements made thus far. In order for HIV treatment to be effective, people living with HIV (PLWH) must be highly adherent without missing a single dose, which can be challenging for those also facing difficulties such as financial insecurity. In the context of Kampala, Uganda’s urban capital, it has been suggested that healthcare accessibility is made difficult by several physical …

The Olfactory And Auditory Capabilities Of Dogs (Canis Lupus Familiaris) For Locating Different Quantities Of Food, Shayla Jackson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Although some animals, such as elephants, can use olfaction to discriminate quantities of food, previous research suggested dogs cannot smell the difference between quantities of hot dog slices. In the experiments reported here, dogs were allowed to smell two opaque containers under which were placed different numbers of hot dog slices, and then were allowed to make a choice between containers. In Experiment 1, dogs chose between one and five hot dog slices and chose the larger quantity at an above chance level. In Experiment 2 and Experiment 3, I tested whether dogs conformed to the distance effect and/or the …

When Life Gives You Lemons: The Development And Validation Of The Resilience Scale For Older Adults, Claire A. Wilson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The study of resilience, or positive adaptation in the face of adversity, is important across the lifespan, but may be particularly relevant for older adults who tend to experience an increasing number of challenges. Traditionally, resilience assessment has largely focused on child and young-to-middle aged adult populations, and as such, the literature is lacking a validated resilience measure developed specifically for older adults. This dissertation aimed to improve the measurement of resilience in older populations by developing and validating a new resilience measure that is relevant and appropriate for older adults. In Study 1, a qualitative metasynthesis was conducted to …

A Walkthrough Of The Canadian Video Game Industry: An Economic Geography Perspective On The Digital Entertainment Frontier, Grant L. Morin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The video game industry has been examined since the 1970’s, yet individual country analysis from an economic geography perspective has been lacking. It is the contribution of this dissertation to utilize the agglomeration economy and location theory literature in its application to the Canadian video game industry.

To understand this industry, a mixed-method approach is used. Kernel density maps, standard deviational ellipses, and mapping processes were used to illustrate the dispersion and clustering patterns of studios in Canada. In addition, a Poisson regression was performed using count data of the number of video game firms in census metropolitan areas. The …

Psychological Predictors Of Injury In Collegiate Cheerleaders, Alexander Marchand

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

According to the revised stress-injury model (Williams & Andersen, 1998), greater life stress predicts greater vulnerability to athletic injury, with this relationship being strongest among athletes exhibiting competitive anxiety, less social support, and non-adaptive coping skills. This study tested the validity of this model among collegiate cheerleaders, an injury-prone athlete group. Ninety-two collegiate cheerleaders recorded instances of injury over 12 weeks. Measures of life stress, competitive anxiety, coping style, social support, and previous injury were obtained. Heightened negative life stress did not coincide with greater injury. A positive stress-injury relationship was observed among cheerleaders reporting high avoidance coping. A negative …

The Human Cerebellum Has Almost 80% Of The Surface Area Of The Neocortex, Martin I. Sereno, J. Rn Diedrichsen, Mohamed Tachrount, Guilherme Testa-Silva, Helen D Arceuil, Chris De Zeeuw

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. The surface of the human cerebellar cortex is much more tightly folded than the cerebral cortex. It was computationally reconstructed for the first time to the level of all individual folia from multicontrast high-resolution postmortem MRI scans. Its total shrinkage-corrected surface area (1,590 cm2) was larger than expected or previously reported, equal to 78% of the total surface area of the human neocortex. The unfolded and flattened surface comprised a narrow strip 10 cm wide but almost 1 m long. By applying the same methods to the neocortex and cerebellum of …

Equity Considerations In Active School Travel Interventions, Alina Medeiros

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Active school travel has benefits for children’s physical and mental health, academic achievement, and the environment. Underscoring active school travel is children’s independent mobility, defined as their ability to travel around their community without adult supervision. Interventions have shown some success in reversing declining trends in active school travel and independent mobility. However, little is known about how interventions have varying impacts on different subgroups of children. This thesis identifies ways to increase equity in active school travel interventions by investigating how equity is currently considered in interventions and gendered disparities in children’s ability to engage in independent mobility. This …

Investigating The Relationship Between Event Knowledge, Autistic Traits, And Social Ability: A Network Science Approach, Kara E. Hannah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Event knowledge, a person’s understanding of patterns of activities in the world, is crucial for everyday social interactions. Atypical event knowledge could contribute to social communication problems, which are prominent in autism spectrum disorder. Previous research has found atypical event knowledge in autistic individuals; however, research is minimal. In two studies, the relationship between event knowledge and autistic traits, namely social abilities, was investigated. I predicted associations between atypical event knowledge and poorer social abilities. In Study 1, lower social ability correlated with more atypical ordering of event activities. In Study 2, for atypical activity ordering, a relationship was found …

Who Has Seen The Wind Benefits? Impacts Of Ontario Green Energy Policy On Municipal Community Benefit Agreements From Large Wind Energy Projects, Jason Cole

MPA Major Research Papers

The province of Ontario has become Canada's largest wind energy market. This was a result of distinct policies established by the provincial government to encourage renewable energy developments as part of its power supply system. Using distributive justice as a lens, this study aims to clarify how wind energy policy design influences community outcomes for municipalities that host wind turbine projects. Community benefit agreements between municipalities and wind project developers are a prominent tool for distributing financial benefits to local populations and these were used throughout Ontario as part of the wind energy development process. A comparative analysis is undertaken …

Inclusionary Zoning: Identifying Possible Legal Challenges Within Canada And How Best To Pre-Empt Them, Christina Pilatzkie

MPA Major Research Papers

The purpose of this research paper is to explore the legal issues that surround inclusionary zoning. More specifically, the question to be answered through this research is: How can Canadian municipalities shield themselves from legal challenges that may put inclusionary zoning policies at risk of being nullified? Through inductive research byway of qualitative content analysis of 16 American court cases, in which the legal challenges posed to inclusionary zoning ordinances are then extrapolated and applied to the Canadian context, the fundamental legal issues pertinent to Canadian municipalities become illuminated. What has been observed is that there have been a number …

Supporting Knowledge Clusters: An Analysis Of The Organizational Structures And Policies Of Economic Development Agencies In Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, And Windsor, Duncan Purssell

MPA Major Research Papers

To determine if there is a correlation between the organizational structure of economic development agencies and whether these structures facilitate or hinder the success of development policies. To determine what factors other than the organizational structures of economic development agencies facilitate or hinder the success of economic development policies. Methods Used: In this paper a review of the literature in municipal economic development was completed. Three case studies of economic development strategies for midsized urban areas in Southwestern Ontario were completed. The success of each urban areas economic development strategies was evaluated. The structure of each regions economic development agencies …

Comparative Analysis Of Emergency Communication Practices Of Local Public Health Units In Ontario During Covid-19 Pandemic, Thulasika Ledchumikanthan

MPA Major Research Papers

Local Public Health Units play a key role in mitigating the spread of infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to leverage the prevalent information communication technologies including social media to communicate with citizens. The aim of this research paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of how methods and content of communication practices across Ontario Public Health Units have differed during the COVID-19 pandemic and explore possible reasons why. Due to the nature of this research being exploratory, a Grounded Theory approach was used. Content analysis included a systematic review of 10 of the 34 public health units’ …

Pupil Size Is Modulated By The Size Of Equal-Luminance Gratings, Jie Gao, Athena Ko, Yoshiko Yabe, Melvyn A. Goodale, Juan Chen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Pupil size changes with light. For this reason, researchers studying the effect of attention, contextual processing, and arousal on the pupillary response have matched the mean luminance of their stimuli across conditions to eliminate the contribution of differences in light levels. Here, we argue that the match of mean luminance is not enough. In Experiment 1, we presented a circular sinewave grating on a gray background for 2 seconds. The area of the grating could be 3°, 6°, or 9°. The mean luminance of each grating was equal to the luminance of the gray background, such …

‘Instead Of Life In Prison, It Was Life In My Own Skin’: Scope And Limitations Of A Week-Long Daily Online Self-Compassionate Writing Intervention For Young Women’S Body Image, Katarina Huellemann

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Self-compassion involves reappraising negative events, accepting uncomfortable emotions, and practicing self-kindness. This thesis examined the effect of cultivating self-compassion via daily self-compassionate writing completed online for one week on stigmatizing and affirming self-perceptions in young undergraduate women. Undergraduate women (N = 254) were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions (i.e., self-compassionate writing, attentional-control, wait-list control) and completed measures of trait self-compassion, fear of self-compassion, affirming self-perceptions (i.e., body appreciation and broad conceptualization of beauty), and stigmatizing self-perceptions (i.e., self-objectification and phenomenological body shame) at baseline, post-test, and one-month follow-up. Hypotheses were tested using MANCOVA and a latent …

Seeing The Invisible: An Integrated Remote Sensing Approach To Mapping Buried Architecture At Las Colmenas, Virú Valley, Peru, Kayla C. Golay Lausanne

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis reports on the results of a survey project conducted in 2018 and 2019, intending to address two main research questions: (1) What remote sensing technique(s) worked best to identify buried features at Las Colmenas? (2) What combinations of techniques proved to be optimal for identifying buried features, and what are the benefits and limitations of the use of an integrated approach? This project incorporated two scales of analysis: macroscale optical and thermal Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) surveys and microscale Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR), magnetic susceptibility, and magnetometry surveys. A side-by-side comparison proved the thermal UAV, GPR, and magnetic susceptibility …

Professional Gaming And Work: Challenges, Trajectories, And Labour Market Impacts Amongst Professional Gamers, Michael Haight

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Over the last decade the popularity of video games has risen tremendously. A new industry around professional gaming has emerged alongside this growth in the popularity of video games. In professional gaming, individuals play video games competitively while their matches and games are streamed online to a global audience. As a result of the growth in the sector, compensation for some individuals has reached well into six and seven figures. Knowledge of these salaries has resulted in an influx of individuals interested in working in professional gaming. This study investigates not only those individuals who play video games professionally, but …

An Information—Motivation—Behavioural Skills Model Of Sexual Consent, Erin J. Shumlich

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation proposed an Information-Motivation-Behavioural Skills (IMB) model of affirmative sexual consent, which is consent that is ongoing, continuous, and clearly communicated. The overall objectives of the current dissertation research were to: 1) elicit — from young, sexually active individuals — information, motivation, and behavioural skills factors that are related to affirmative sexual consent behaviours; 2) develop and empirically test an Information–Motivation–Behavioural Skills (IMB) model of sexual consent and use this to examine the hypothesized relationships of affirmative consent-related information, motivation, and behavioural skills with affirmative consent behaviours; and 3) evaluate the psychometric properties of an IMB scale measuring …

Essays On Family Economics, Hyeongsuk Jin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis studies decisions the family makes regarding household unions, fertility, and child investment. Chapter 2 studies the educational gradient in non-marital fertility and posits that cohabitation is a driver behind the gradient. I build a lifecycle model of fertility and household union choices, featuring a trade-off between quality and quantity of children. Using the model calibrated to the U.S. data, I study implications of introducing common-law marriage, where cohabiting parents are considered to be married couples. I find that the policy leads fewer people to choose cohabitation, and more children are born to married parents. As a result, children …

Exhuming Norms: Examining The Influence Of International Norms On The Independent Commission For The Location Of Victims’ Remains In Northern Ireland, Tamara Kathleen Hinan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Forced disappearances are crimes against humanity that occur when individuals disappear, often occurring during a period of political conflict. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the conflict among Irish nationalists and British unionists between 1968 and 1998, 16 people were disappeared by Irish nationalist paramilitary forces. In 1999, the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) was established to investigate the disappearances, locate the remains and return the victims to their families.

The ICLVR is not the first institution to conduct forensic human rights investigations into forced disappearances, these investigations have become the standard approach internationally. However, little …

Pragmatic Conservative Nationalism: The Coalition Avenir Quebec, Joshua Nahmias

MA Major Research Papers

The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) is a provincial political party that was founded in 2011 and formed the province’s government for the first time in 2018. The purpose of this major research project is to explain the origins and policy preferences of the CAQ. It will argue that the CAQ reflects a “pragmatic conservative nationalist” ideology, and that this is as much a result of a conscious political orientation as it is a necessity in Quebec’s politically moderate electoral landscape. The party is the ideological heir and the continuation of the centre-right faction of the Parti Québécois (PQ), most notably …

Longitudinal Changes Of Brain Microstructure And Function In Nonconcussed Female Rugby Players, Kathryn Y. Manning, Jeffrey S. Brooks, James P. Dickey, Alexandra Harriss, Lisa Fischer, Tatiana Jevremovic, Kevin Blackney, Christy Barreira, Arthur Brown, Robert Bartha, Tim Doherty, Douglas Fraser, Jeff Holmes, Gregory A. Dekaban, Ravi S. Menon

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

ObjectiveTo longitudinally assess brain microstructure and function in female varsity athletes participating in contact and noncontact sports.MethodsConcussion-free female rugby players (n = 73) were compared to age-matched (ages 18-23) female swimmers and rowers (n = 31) during the in- and off-season. Diffusion and resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) measures were the primary outcomes. The Sports Concussion Assessment Tool and head impact accelerometers were used to monitor symptoms and impacts, respectively.ResultsWe found cross-sectional (contact vs noncontact) and longitudinal (in- vs off-season) changes in white matter diffusion measures and rs-fMRI network connectivity in concussion-free contact athletes relative to noncontact athletes. In particular, mean, axial, …

Nato's Security Sector Reform In Afghanistan, Sakhi Naimpoor

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study aims to understand the security policy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and investigate whether NATO’s Security Sector Reform (SSR) approach in Afghanistan was a mixed record of success and failure between 2003 and 2014. In terms of NATO’s SSR approach in Afghanistan, what worked, what did not work, and why did certain aspects of SSR fail? The analysis sheds light on the policy-relevant, logistic and doctrinal intricacies associated with NATO’s now almost twenty-year record of involvement in Afghanistan, as well as liberal institutionalism’s policy relevance. This research benefits the security policy community by asking whether NATO's …