Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Intra-Field Canopy Nitrogen Retrieval From Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery For Wheat And Corn Crops In Ontario, Canada, Hwang Lee

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The optimization of crop nitrogen fertilization to accurately predict and match the nitrogen (N) supply to the crop N demand is the subject of intense research due to the environmental and economic impact of N fertilization. Excess N could seep into the water supplies around the field and cause unnecessary spending by farmers. Understanding the detailed spatial information about a crop status is known as a farming management technique called precision agriculture, which allows farmers to maximize their yield and profit while reducing the inputs of fertilizers, pesticides, water, and insecticides.

The goal of this study is to document and …

"At The Very Beginning, There's This Dream." The Role Of Utopia In The Workings Of Local And Cryptocurrencies, Diane-Laure Arjalies

Business Publications

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the number of alternative currencies aiming at transforming global financial institutions, such as local and complementary currencies (LCC) and cryptocurrencies, has exploded. Yet the motivations and workings of such monies are relatively unknown. This chapter aims to fill this gap by providing a framework that uncovers the ideals pursued by alternative currencies, and the effects of those ideals on the production of money. To do so, I present a comparative analysis of the valuation infrastructure – the processes through which value(s) is produced – of one LCC, Sol Violette, and three cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ğ1 …

Is Social Rank Correlated With Cognitive Ability In Black-Capped Chickadees?, Gloria Hyun Young Cho

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Traditionally, dominant animals have been regarded as better competitors in all aspects of life, including cognition. However, the survival and reproductive advantages of being a dominant chickadee are surprisingly modest. It is possible that subordinate individuals compensate for the disadvantages of a lower rank with better cognitive abilities. If dominants are monopolizing prime food sources, subordinates may have developed better associative learning skills by learning to associate novel types of stimuli with food rewards. In this thesis, I asked whether dominance rank is correlated with cognitive ability in Black-capped Chickadees. I determined dominance rank in six flocks of six chickadees, …

Privacy And Surveillance In The Workplace: Closing The Electronic Surveillance Gap, Christina Catenacci

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation argues that there is an electronic surveillance gap in the employment context in Canada, a gap that is best understood as an absence of appropriate legal provisions to regulate employers’ electronic surveillance of employees both inside and outside the workplace. This dissertation aims to identify and articulate principles and values that can be used to close the electronic surveillance gap in Canada and suggests that, through the synthesis of social theories of surveillance and privacy, together with analyses of privacy provisions and workplace privacy cases, a new and better workplace privacy regime can be designed. This dissertation uses …

Taking Ethics Seriously: Navigating The Ethics Approval Process At A Canadian University, Marie-Pier Cantin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Based on interviews with key stakeholders in the ethics approval process at the University of Western Ontario, this thesis explores what it means to take ethics seriously in the context of formal, regulatory ethics policy and procedures. This study identifies several key tensions at play throughout the course of the ethics approval process, many stemming from often incommensurable understandings of ethical responsibility, ethical behaviour and ethics in research more generally. By centering key stakeholders and their relationships to one another and to the system that maintains and supports the ethics approval process, we can track many of these tensions to …

The Goldstone Commission In South Africa’S Transition: Linking Gradual Institutional Change And Information-Gathering Institutions, Tammy Lambert

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Used by states to investigate patterns of past human rights abuses, truth commissions have garnered considerable consensus for their value in addressing past harms and repression. Many still tout the South African model as a success story of truth commissions. This dissertation provides answers to two questions. First, what role, if any, did earlier investigative institutions play in shaping South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)? The dissertation argues that the Commission of Inquiry for the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, also known as the Goldstone Commission, played a central role in transforming information- gathering measures in South Africa. …

The Motherhood Penalty: Not So Black And White, Shruti Kumar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Working mothers experience discrimination in hiring, promotion, salary, and training opportunities. This “motherhood penalty” occurs, in part, due to stereotyped family role expectations: working mothers are often perceived as the primary caregivers in their families and are assumed to have additional domestic responsibilities compared to fathers or non-parents. Notably, when women are framed as breadwinners rather than caregivers, they do not experience a motherhood penalty. However, this line of research largely focuses on the experiences of White women and is lacking an intersectional approach. Using an experimental research design, I examined how candidate race and parenthood impacted breadwinner perceptions and …

What Trees Taught Me About Covid-19: On Relational Accounting And Other Magic, Diane-Laure Arjalies

Business Publications

While the world was on lock down, human beings started craving for green spaces. As they walked amidst the trees, trees began to talk to them. The surprising truth then emerged: There were actually secrets to be shared by the forest. This essay reflects on the teachings offered by nature(s) during the pandemic. Based on a personal encounter with a river, it caresses the relationships that have connected humans to non-humans over time and that have led to make this confinement both a unique and universal experience. It suggests embracing relational accounting, the expression of our relationships with each other …

Looming And Receding Visual Networks In Awake Marmosets Investigated With Fmri, Justine C. Cléry, David J. Schaeffer, Yuki Hori, Kyle M. Gilbert, Lauren K. Hayrynen, Joseph S. Gati, Ravi S. Menon, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Author(s) An object that is looming toward a subject or receding away contains important information for determining if this object is dangerous, beneficial or harmless. This information (motion, direction, identity, time-to-collision, size, velocity) is analyzed by the brain in order to execute the appropriate behavioral responses depending on the context: fleeing, freezing, grasping, eating, exploring. In the current study, we performed ultra-high-field functional MRI (fMRI) at 9.4T in awake marmosets to explore the patterns of brain activation elicited by visual stimuli looming toward or receding away from the monkey. We found that looming and receding visual stimuli …

The Conceptual Metaphor False Memory Effect, Jeffrey N. Reid

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Conceptual Metaphor Theory posits that cross-domain mappings play a fundamental role in thought. However, to date there has been little research investigating the influence of conceptual metaphors in the subdomains of cognitive psychology, such as learning, concepts, and memory, leading critics to argue that conceptual metaphors are not psychologically real. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore whether conceptual metaphors influence episodic memory. In four experiments, a modified version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was employed in which participants studied lists of expressions. Every expression within each list was based on a proposed conceptual metaphor. For example, the TIME …

(In)Visible Lives: Exploring Lesbian Migrant Spaces Of Belonging In South Africa, Kayla Baumgartner

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores how and where lesbian migrant women living in South Africa feel a sense of belonging. Despite South Africa having legal and constitutional protections for sexual minorities and refugees, both groups of individuals face high amounts of homophobic and xenophobically motivated persecution. Little work has explored the unique challenges that migrants who are also sexual minorities can face as a result of their intersecting identities, and this is particularly true for work that looks at the lives of lesbian migrants.

With principles of narrative inquiry serving as methodological guidelines, this study uses interviews and solicited sketch maps from …

Canadian Women's Experiences In Mixed-Sex Sport: Wheelchair Rugby, Bronwyn Corrigan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Wheelchair rugby exploded in popularity after the documentary Murderball was released in 2005. The sport was developed in Canada in the 1970s and named an official Paralympic sport in 2000 (Litchke et al., 2012). Wheelchair rugby is one of the few Paralympic or Olympic sports that includes mixed-sex participation. Where historically women with disabilities have had limited access to elite sporting competition (DePauw, 1997), wheelchair rugby provides the opportunity for women to represent themselves as competitive and physical beings, capable of the physicality and aggressive nature of the sport alongside men (Pavlidis & Fullagar, 2013). Yet there is a paucity …

The Role Of Dark Personalities In Intimate Partner Violence, Rachel A. Plouffe

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an international public health concern that poses significant mental and physical health risks for affected individuals. To improve prevention and intervention efforts, it is imperative that researchers and government bodies understand risk factors for IPV. This dissertation sought to evaluate individual differences in personality and childhood experiences as risk factors for various forms of IPV. The first two studies in this dissertation assessed whether the Dark Tetrad personality traits moderated the relationships between participants’ and their partners’ levels of IPV perpetration. In these studies, we assessed whether the Dark Tetrad traits operated differently in their …

Epigenetics A Decolonizing Science, Wade Paul

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Epigenetics is the study of gene expression that does not entail alterations to the actual DNA. Decolonization is a theoretical and political movement that seeks to deconstruct colonial institutions and ideologies and reconstruct new and balanced approaches that accept and respect Indigenous worldviews. This project studies the decolonizing potential of epigenetics. Using genealogy as the method, the study establishes a long history of reductionist and deterministic thought that shaped the study of genetic science. Particular instances like thrift gene theory are explored to highlight how genetic explanations have been detrimental to the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people and illustrate …

Preparing Communities For The Golden Years: Approaches For Developing Age-Friendly Communities For Seniors, Shivi Darubra

MPA Major Research Papers

The heterogeneous nature of aging has led policymakers to reconsider how seniors are impacted by localized decision-making and implementation efforts (Remillard-Boilard, 2018). Forecasted by the World Health Organization (WHO), the population of seniors (60+) is expected to reach over two billion worldwide, surpassing the number of children being born across the world for the first time in human history (United Nations, 2006). To better address the local challenges faced by the aging population, WHO devised an Age-Friendly Communities (AFC) framework to guide urban communities into redesigning policy and intervention models to better reflect the needs of seniors while also allowing …

Addressing Water Security Through First Nations-Municipal Cooperation, Corrine Codina

MPA Major Research Papers

To what extent can municipalities support a multi-barrier approach (MBA) to improving First Nations water security in Ontario? Through a systematic content analysis of legislation, standards, guidelines, and reports, capacities of First Nations and municipalities to implement the MBA are identified in relation to the approach’s three barriers: source water protection, water treatment systems, and water distribution systems. The results of this paper show that municipalities are equipped with the capacities to support a First Nations’ MBA, and are particularly well equipped in their managerial, technical, and political capacities to support efforts of source water protection. Water treatment and distribution, …

Corporate Structures In Transit: Comparing The Development Of Intermunicipal Transit In British Columbia And Ontario And Why Ontario Should Consider Reform, Luke Charlton

MPA Major Research Papers

This paper will argue for changes in the corporate structure of transit authorities in Ontario by contrasting their effectiveness in producing intermunicipal transit with British Columbia’s transit authorities. It is well established that transit is correlated to many benefits: socioeconomic opportunities, increased quality of life, boosting the local economy, and reducing the environmental impact of transportation. However, one area of neglect within Ontario has been the development of intermunicipal transit within Ontario outside of the Greater Toronto Area. British Columbia proves that with a centripetal authority structure (power towards the centre), transit organizations can be adaptive and cooperative. Ontario’s centrifugal …

Going Back: The Case For Remunicipalization: Analyzing The Ottawa Case To Understand Why Municipalities May Remunicipalize A Service Instead Of Choosing Another Private Contractor, Stephen Coppola

MPA Major Research Papers

With the wave of New Public Management, privatization of services in the public sector became a popular choice among government managers who believed this would improve the quality of services while also lowering costs. This turned out to not always be the case, and municipalities have slowly begun to turn towards the remunicipalization of services that were once contracted out. The purpose of this research paper is to take a Canadian case of remunicipalization and analyze what the primary reasons were for remunicipalization. The city of Ottawa served as the case example and the research paper identified that the City …

Community Improvement Plans: An Analysis Of Content And Outcomes Of Community Improvement Plans In Ontario, Paul Pirri

MPA Major Research Papers

Community Improvement Plans are an often used, but seldom studied economic development and planning tool used to spur economic growth within an economically depressed area. But are they effective? This paper answers two questions concerning Community Improvement Plans. First, “How are Community Improvement Plans used in the Province of Ontario?”; and second, “Is the execution of these plans resulting in greater economic prosperity for the communities that have enacted them?”. This work is undertaken by reviewing the content of 202 Community Improvement Plans across the Province of Ontario. Regression tests on municipal assessments from 2001-2018 to determine what effect the …

Oh Caledonia! Our Home Or Native Land? Haldimand County’S Role In The Caledonia Land Dispute, 2005-2016, Aren Plante

MPA Major Research Papers

In 2006, when over a dozen protesters from the Six Nations took control of the Douglas Creek and rechristened the land Kanonhstation, the Caledonia land dispute went from being a local clash to a national story. In recent years, land disputes between Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian state have inaugurated much scholarly intrigue. Despite the topic’s popularity, the vast majority of material examining land disputes looks at the role of First Nations, the federal government, the provincial government, and provincial police departments; however, nothing has been written on the part municipalities play in land disputes. The research questions for this …

The Kids Are Alt-Right: A Review Of Authoritarian Attitudes In Young Adults, R. P. Mcdonald

MA Major Research Papers

The aim of this literature review will attempt to identify and establish a series of research avenues from the existing publications related to the study of authoritarianism that could be used to prepare the reader and researchers to identify the causal pathways that have led to the resurgence of latent racist attitudes among young white men in recent years. The first section of this paper will explore the historical origins of the study of authoritarian personality types through the work of Adorno, while paying close attention to the development of authoritarian attitudes rooted in early childhood experiences. The second section …

Streamlining Information Technology Services In Local Government, Michael Ben

MPA Major Research Papers

This research paper examines the outcome of the City of Toronto's Shared Services foundation project. Drawing on the lessons learned from previous shared services projects at the City, it aims to answer the question: "What factors promote or discourage shared services between a local government and its agencies?" The paper conducts a systematic literature review with the aim of discovering a candidate set of factors that promote or discourage participation in shared services between a local government and its agencies. It then uses the literature review to explore the potential for future shared services between the City of Toronto and …

Strategic Planning And Management In Mid-Sized Ontario Municipalities: What Factors Contribute To Successful Adoption And Implementation Of Strategic Plans?, Lori Cruthers

MPA Major Research Papers

This research report focuses on the use of strategic planning and management practices in mid-sized municipalities in Ontario. The paper analyzes the adoption of strategic plans as well as the implementation of strategic management practices to determine what factors contribute to successful adoption and implementation of strategic plans. Bryson (2010) indicated that “significant improvements in strategic planning practice will come when ‘it’ is widely understood in its richness as a managerial practice or set of practices – and not as some kind of fairly rigid recipe for producing standardized objects called strategic plans that somehow are meant to implement themselves” …

Where Have All The Local Politicians Gone? A Preliminary Examination Of Causes And Impacts Of Acclamation In Canada’S Municipal Governments, Sheena Earl

MPA Major Research Papers

Why are local government acclamations so common, and is it a problem for municipal democracy? This paper provides a preliminary examination of local uncontested elections through the exploration of various opinions and arguments raised on this topic. Since the academic literature on acclamations at the local level is extremely sparse, information was gathered through a content analysis of online newspaper articles and by performing interviews with current mayors from some of the most and least competitive municipalities following the 2018 election cycle. The following eight reasons for the occurrence of acclamations are referenced in the non-academic literature, many of which …

Pot For Potholes: Could Cannabis Taxation Revenues Solve The Municipal Infrastructure Funding Deficit In Ontario?, Lori Jivan

MPA Major Research Papers

In Canada, it is estimated that the total value of core municipal infrastructure is over $1.1 trillion dollars or about $80,000 per household. Of this value one-third is in poor or very poor condition which increases the risk of service disruption. Municipalities are struggling to fund these infrastructure renewal needs with limited revenue tools. Property taxes remain the largest source of revenue for Canadian municipalities but are currently insufficient to meet their long-term needs. Municipalities in Ontario have been advocating for additional revenue tools to address this challenge. This paper uses a common set of evaluation criteria to analyze three …

A Declaration Of Interdependence: An Analysis Of Multilevel Governance And The Role Of Municipal Governments As Climate Policy Entrepreneurs, Tyler Raponi

MPA Major Research Papers

Since March 2019, municipalities in Ontario have become increasingly conscious of the role of local government in addressing the global climate emergency. Although minor departmental initiatives such as green infrastructure development policies are understood as environmentally conscious, the larger policy network of municipal governance has only recently entered the climate change mitigation and adaptation policy field. Declarations of climate emergencies are a modern way for municipal governments to signal both interest and intended action in climate change policies. In one year, Ontario municipal climate emergencies increased from 0 to 47, with the 47 municipalities representing nearly 90% of Ontario’s population. …

Music As A Scaffold For Listening To Speech: Better Neural Phase-Locking To Song Than Speech, Christina M. Vanden Bosch Der Nederlanden, Marc F. Joanisse, Jessica A. Grahn

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Authors Neural activity synchronizes with the rhythmic input of many environmental signals, but the capacity of neural activity to entrain to the slow rhythms of speech is particularly important for successful communication. Compared to speech, song has greater rhythmic regularity, a more stable fundamental frequency, discrete pitch movements, and a metrical structure, this may provide a temporal framework that helps listeners neurally track information better than the rhythmically irregular rhythms of speech. The current study used EEG to examine whether entrainment to the syllable rate of linguistic utterances, as indexed by cerebro-acoustic phase coherence, was greater when …

Expanding The Search For Genetic Biomarkers Of Parkinson's Disease Into The Living Brain, Simon M. Benoit, Hu Xu, Susanne Schmid, Roumiana Alexandrova, Gaganjot Kaur, Bhooma Thiruvahindrapuram, Sergio L. Pereira, Mandar Jog, Matthew O. Hebb

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Altered gene expression related to Parkinson's Disease (PD) has not been described in the living brain, yet this information may support novel discovery pertinent to disease pathophysiology and treatment. This study compared the transcriptome in brain biopsies obtained from living PD and Control patients. To evaluate the novelty of this data, a comprehensive literature review also compared differentially expressed gene (DEGs) identified in the current study with those reported in PD cadaveric brain and peripheral tissues. RNA was extracted from rapidly cryopreserved frontal lobe specimens collected from PD and Control patients undergoing neurosurgical procedures. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed and …

The "Inferior Temporal Numeral Area" Distinguishes Numerals From Other Character Categories During Passive Viewing: A Representational Similarity Analysis, Darren J. Yeo, Courtney Pollack, Rebecca Merkley, Daniel Ansari, Gavin R. Price

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

A region in the posterior inferior temporal gyrus (pITG) is thought to be specialized for processing Arabic numerals, but fMRI studies that compared passive viewing of numerals to other character types (e.g., letters and novel characters) have not found evidence of numeral preference in the pITG. However, recent studies showed that the engagement of the pITG is modulated by attention and task contexts, suggesting that passive viewing paradigms may be ill-suited for examining numeral specialization in the pITG. It is possible, however, that even if the strengths of responses to different category types are similar, the distributed response patterns (i.e., …

Understanding Indigenous And Non-Indigenous Perspectives Of Reconciliation: A Case Study, Kaitlyn Watson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Reconciliation in the Canadian context is difficult to define (Graeme & Mandawe, 2017; Martin, 2009), but is often linked to the residential school system (Chrisjohn & Wasacase, 2011; Nagy, 2012). This instrumental case study examines how reconciliation is understood and activated among a group of educators and community members involved with a professional learning event held in Southern Ontario inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Employing narrative inquiry, and informed by decolonizing methodologies, seven event organizers, four presenters, and five attendees participated in conversational interviews. Two main themes were uncovered from the interview data. The first, reconciliation …