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Examining the Root Causes of Social Isolation and Loneliness in Community-Dwelling 2SLGBTQIA+ Older Adults
No full textResearch displays that involuntary loneliness and lack of community support is more prevalent among older (50+) 2SLGBTQIA+ people compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Minority stress has been pointed out as one explanation for this disparity and may be partly rooted in a life course where sexual and gender identities were criminalized, pathologized, and often not socially accepted. Many initiatives offered by government organizations to improve mental health and prevent social isolation are often inaccessible to 2SLGBTQIA+ people due to heteronormative expectations. This literature review examines the root causes of social isolation and loneliness for community-dwelling 2SLGBTQIA+ older adults and will form a base from which future research and programming directions may be developed.Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA)UndergraduateReviewe
The Politics of Pedagogy
Get PDFThis study investigates the knowledge gaps in high school education regarding residential schools and climate change, specifically in Alberta and British Columbia. The research employs qualitative interviews with university students from both provinces to understand how these gaps influence university students' understanding of social justice issues in differing ways, exploring what students learned, or failed to learn, about residential schools and climate change—two pressing and timely social issues. A key focus is on understanding how students fill these educational gaps post-high school, whether through university courses, individual educators' efforts, or alternative sources like social media.
The findings reveal significant differences in the effectiveness of high school education between the two provinces, particularly in teaching about residential schools, with British Columbia generally outperforming Alberta. Moreover, both provinces show a substantial deficiency in climate change education. Notably, students often rely on individual initiatives rather than structured curriculum to bridge these knowledge gaps. The study highlights the potential of empowered students in driving social change, once equipped with the necessary knowledge.
This research underscores the importance of comprehensive education on critical social issues at the high school level, supporting reforms to ensure students have early access to this vital knowledge. It contributes valuable insights into the necessity of enhancing curriculum and teaching methods for a more informed, mobilized and socially conscious student body.Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA)UndergraduateReviewe
Weakly nonlinear analysis of a two-species non-local advection-diffusion system
No full textNonlocal interactions are ubiquitous in nature and play a central role in many biological systems. In this paper, we perform a bifurcation analysis of a widely-applicable advection–diffusion model with nonlocal advection terms describing the species movements generated by inter-species interactions. We use linear analysis to assess the stability of the constant steady state, then weakly nonlinear analysis to recover the shape and stability of non-homogeneous solutions. Since the system arises from a conservation law, the resulting amplitude equations consist of a Ginzburg–Landau equation coupled with an equation for the zero mode. In particular, this means that supercritical branches from the Ginzburg–Landau equation need not be stable. Indeed, we find that, depending on the parameters, bifurcations can be subcritical (always unstable), stable supercritical, or unstable supercritical. We show numerically that, when small amplitude patterns are unstable, the system exhibits large amplitude patterns and hysteresis, even in supercritical regimes. Finally, we construct bifurcation diagrams by combining our analysis with a previous study of the minimizers of the associated energy functional. Through this approach we reveal parameter regions in which stable small amplitude patterns coexist with strongly modulated solutions.JRP and VG acknowledge support of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant EP/V002988/1 awarded to JRP. VG is also grateful for support from the National Group of Mathematical Physics (GNFM-INdAM). TH is supported through a discovery grant of the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), RGPIN-2017-04158. MAL
gratefully acknowledges support from NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2018-05210 and from the Gilbert and Betty Kennedy Chair in Mathematical Biology.FacultyReviewe
Examining Jewish Sociolinguistic Influence in the Russian Language: «От Талмуда до тюрьмы»
No full textThroughout the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Jews in Russia adopted the use of the Russian language more and more. As a result, a subtle but distinct ethnolect with influence from the native Yiddish spoken by many Jews began to emerge within the Russian Jewish community. Exemplified both by the integration of Yiddish vocabulary into Russian speech, and a tendency to use Yiddish intonation and word-for-word renditions of Yiddish idioms and sentence structure translated into otherwise “Russian” speech, this ethnolect was culturally insular at first. However, Judeo-Russian’s unique vocabulary did not remain an isolated linguistic phenomenon for very long: contact with ethnic Russians meant linguistic cross-pollination for not just one, but both populations. Via avenues such as the Russian criminal underground, the Gulag system, and simple inter-group mixing in cities with significant Jewish populations, qualities of Judeo-Russian found its way into non-standard varieties of the language spoken by ethnic Russians themselves. Largely, words of Yiddish origin became incredibly commonplace within «Феня» (fenya), a Russian criminal vernacular (also referred to as a sociolect). From Fenya, such words spread into the wider Russian consciousness and remain familiar to most Russians today, as common elements of slang vernacular.Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA)UndergraduateReviewe
A Longitudinal Investigation of Risk and Resilience in First-Year Sexual Minority Women Undergraduate Students: How Minority Stress and College-Specific Covitality Relate to Positive and Negative Psychosocial Adjustment
No full textThe first year of university can be especially challenging for sexual minority women (SMW) who, in addition to facing transitional stress, also experience sexual minority stressors because of their sexual orientation and sexual violence because of their gender. Yet, first-year SMW undergraduates remain an understudied population, suggesting significant gaps in our understanding of their lived experiences and psychosocial needs. Accordingly, the overall purpose of the current dissertation, which includes two standalone journal articles, was to understand better SMW students’ experiences with possible risk factors (i.e., minority stressors) and university-based strengths (i.e., college-specific covitality), as well as their associations with negative and positive psychosocial adjustment (i.e., psychological distress, positive wellbeing) throughout their first year of university.
Article 1 sought to identify trajectories of minority stress and psychosocial adjustment across SMW’s first two academic semesters and to examine the unique short-term influence of minority stress on SMW’s psychosocial adjustment during that transitional period. Article 2 explored college-specific covitality, as measured by the College Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (CSSWQ; Renshaw & Bolognino, 2016), and investigated the CSSWQ’s within-person and between-persons psychometric properties in first-year SMW undergraduates. Altogether, this research addressed several gaps in the literature by (a) adding to the scant literature on SMW’s psychosocial needs, (b) extending the study of minority stress in SMW undergraduates, (c) establishing the appropriateness of the CSSWQ for longitudinal use as well as the applicability of the underlying college-student covitality model in a sample of first-year SMW, (d) identifying possible strengths that could be amplified at the university level to encourage more positive psychosocial adjustment in SMW, and ultimately, (e) moving toward a more strengths-based understanding of sexual minorities’ psychosocial adjustment to university.Graduate2025-03-2
La femme qui chante : Barbara chante Barbara, le devenir féminin dans la chanson française
No full textCette thèse examine l’éthos de l’auteure-compositrice-interprète (ACI) française Barbara, nom de scène de Monique Serf, à travers l’analyse du discours de son premier album ACI, Barbara chante Barbara (1964). Elle est l’une des premières femmes du genre chanson française à interpréter ses propres chansons écrites et composées par elle et le portrait que Barbara construit dans ses chansons autobiographiques combat des archétypes féminins et révèle l’image de la femme contemporaine. La présentation de soi élaborée dans ses chansons éclaire la situation des femmes dans la sphère sociale, professionnelle et politique et sert en tant que modèle féminin dans l’industrie de la musique et au-delà dans la vie privée. Être en révolution, Barbara se réinvente dans chaque relation et dans chaque prise de parole ; son éthos permettra de mieux comprendre la situation des femmes dans la chanson, et plus encore, au sein de la société.
This thesis examines the ethos of French singer-songwriter, Barbara, the stage name of Monique Serf, through the discourse analysis of her first album as singer-songwriter, Barbara chante Barbara (1964). She is one of the first women from the chanson française genre to sing her own songs and the portrait that Barbara constructs in her autobiographical lyrics fight female archetypes and reveal the image of a modern woman. The self presentation elaborated on in her songs shed light on the situation of women in social, professional and political spheres and serves as a model for women in the music industry as well as in their private life. A woman in revolution, Barbara reinvents herself in each relationship and with every breath ; her ethos will allow us to better understand the situation of women in song, and consequently, within society.Graduat
Supportive housing design: Resident health and wellness needs
Get PDFThe built environment and design of housing affects the mental health and wellness of those who have previously been homeless and reside in supporting housing complexes. When overlooked, a poorly designed facility can have negative implications on an individual’s mental health and wellness. This capstone research project underlines the importance of understanding the needs of supportive housing residents living at Uplands Walk, a supportive housing site in Nanaimo, British Columbia, operated by Pacifica Housing Advisory Association (Pacifica Housing).
Pacifica Housing is a non-profit housing organization operating in Victoria and Nanaimo, British Columbia. The organization provides supportive housing for individuals and families on Vancouver Island. Uplands Walk is a purpose-built supportive housing site located in North Nanaimo. The complex provides stable, permanent housing to 34 previously homeless individuals. Although there has been a rapid increase in supportive housing facilities in response to the housing crisis and the number of individuals experiencing homelessness, little research exists on the significance of built environments and the design of supportive housing.
Methods include 10 interviews and photographs of the complex captured through autophotography to find data highlighting successes, improvements and recommendations to support residents' mental health and wellness needs. Participants express their appreciation for the suitability of the housing space along with the process of upgrading and improving the design. The most significant themes were suitability and ongoing design stemming from adaptive design concepts based on Cherns’ Sociotechnical Design Theory (1976). Opportunities for social interactions, opportunities for engagement and safety autonomy were also major themes highlighted from engagement design concepts based on Supportive Design Theory by Roger Ulrich (1991). The findings recommend the need for flexible and adaptable design in the building complex to allow for the changing needs of residents to be met.
Recommendations include renovated communal areas, improved amenities, lighting solutions and ideas for resident socialization. Additionally, participants suggested safety measures such as security. Architects, interior designers and housing organizations can better understand resident feedback and incorporate flexible design to existing and future complexes. Overall, understanding the varying and constantly changing needs of residents allows for more inclusive solutions, thus leading to higher satisfaction rates and improved wellnessGraduat
Explaining empirical dynamic modelling using verbal, graphical and mathematical approaches
Get PDFEmpirical dynamic modelling (EDM) is becoming an increasingly popular method for understanding the dynamics of ecosystems. It has been applied to laboratory, terrestrial, freshwater and marine systems, used to forecast natural populations and has addressed fundamental ecological questions. Despite its increasing use, we have not found full explanations of EDM in the ecological literature, limiting understanding and reproducibility. Here we expand upon existing work by providing a detailed introduction to EDM. We use three progressively more complex approaches. A short verbal explanation of EDM is then explicitly demonstrated by graphically working through a simple example. We then introduce a full mathematical description of the steps involved. Conceptually, EDM translates a time series of data into a path through a multi-dimensional space, whose axes are lagged values of the time series. A time step is chosen from which to make a prediction. The state of the system at that time step corresponds to a ‘focal point’ in the multi-dimensional space. The set (called the library) of candidate nearest neighbours to the focal point is constructed, to determine the nearest neighbours that are then used to make the prediction. Our mathematical explanation explicitly documents which points in the multi-dimensional space should not be considered as focal points. We suggest a new option for excluding points from the library that may be useful for short-term time series that are often found in ecology. We focus on the core simplex and S-map algorithms of EDM. Our new R package, pbsEDM, enhances understanding (by outputting intermediate calculations), reproduces our results and can be applied to new data. Our work improves the clarity of the inner workings of EDM, a prerequisite for EDM to reach its full potential in ecology and have wide uptake in the provision of advice to managers of natural resources.LAR thanks Fisheries and Oceans Canada for postdoctoral funding through FSERP (Fisheries Science and Ecosystem Research Program).FacultyReviewe
Educator resilience: Experiences of inclusive education educators during the COVID-19 pandemic
Get PDFIn a study focused on the experiences of inclusive education educators during the COVID-19 pandemic, six inclusive educators participated in phenomenological interviews. Interview data and other research studies provided insight into the lived experiences of participants during the COVID-19 pandemic, including social isolation, loneliness, wellness, and resilience. Responses were analyzed using a descriptive phenomenological approach, resulting in four meta themes, and nine themes. Findings indicate that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the participants’ experiences, roles as educators, and overall resilience have significantly altered alongside the support and communication from administrators and community members. Recommendations for education administrators by the participants were also discussed.Graduat
Environmental Scan of Canadian Sources to Determine Current National Trends in the Use of Inpatient Portals in the Acute Care Setting
Get PDFObjectives
The objective of this study was to develop a better understanding of the readiness of Canadian healthcare organizations to implement inpatient portals. Research questions included: where in Canada inpatient portals had been implemented? what Canadian focused research has been done on patient portals? what standards, guidelines and legislation for inpatient portals have been created? what Canadian information about inpatient portals can be mapped by the Clinical Adoption Framework?
Methods
An environmental scan of Canadian health authorities, health organizations, government agencies, news organizations, available grey sources, and academic literature was undertaken. This included informal, undirected, conditional and formal methods for scanning for information. Data was summarized and aggregated by both province/territory and health authorities.
Results
This research identified implementations of patient portals and electronic health records that have the potential to include inpatient usage within British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario due to available technology, but there is a lack of clarity on what inpatient usage is in place. There is a lack of research on Canadian implementations of inpatient portals and Canadian viewpoints on the use of inpatient portals. In addition, information on standards, guidelines, and legislation for the use of inpatient portals in Canada is lacking. Only an Alberta Health Virtual Care Action Plan, Ontario standards and implementation guidelines and a Health Canada report with some recommendations on improving portal usage were found. However, These reports were focused on outpatient use. Due to the lack of information, little could be mapped to the Clinical Adoption (CA) framework. Most information described the benefits of use for patients and providers as reported by the organizations delivering the technology and was mostly focused on outpatient usage. Overall, there appears to be very little evidence of readiness within Canadian institutions to adopt inpatient portals.
Conclusion
Research has identified that there are benefits of inpatient portal usage. However, more studies are needed to understand the use of inpatient portals from the perspective of patients, providers, and organizations in Canada. Where portals are available, better dissemination of information and education is needed. At a national level, improved guidelines, standards, and legislation could be beneficial.Graduat