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Injury prevalence in open water swimmers
No full textA Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Kinesiology and Health Studies, University of Regina. ix, 85 p.Open water swimming (OWS) is currently one of the fastest growing mass participation sports worldwide, and differs from pool swimming in that athletes swim in natural bodies of water such as lakes, oceans and rivers. Participation in this sport spans a wide range of individuals of all ages with a roughly equal sex distribution. No prior investigations have evaluated the musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries characteristic to the sport in a recreational capacity, and only one group has completed biannual surveillance in an elite population on three occasions. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the prevalence and explore possible risk factors associated with MSK injuries in non-elite OW swimmers during the COVID-19 pandemic (for circumstantial reasons). Participants were invited through a variety of social media channels and OWS community communications to complete a self-administered internet-based survey to evaluate the details of any injuries sustained within the previous 6-month period and various other demographic and training related details. 156 participants completed or partially completed the survey (95 female, 52 male, 9 did not disclose their sex; average age 47.7 (±12.4) years). The 6-month prevalence of MSK injury within this population was 30% (n=36), with the most commonly injured region being the shoulder (n = 25), and the second most common being the cervical spine (n = 6). A logistic regression was performed to assess the association between self-reports of injury (outcome variable) and various predictor variables. The final model yielded one significant predictor variable: participation in efforts to prevent injury (OR [95% CI] = 5.004 [1.356, 18.465], Wald =5.843, p = 0.016). Two marginally-significant predictor variables were age (OR [95% CI] = 1.039 [0.996, 1.084], Wald = 3.093, p = 0.079) and sex (female) (OR [95% CI] =2.614 [0.852, 8.021], Wald = 2.821, p = 0.093). Results of this study will be dispersed among the OWS community via academic and open-access publications, and may be used to guide injury prevention and rehabilitation efforts in this growing population.Studentye
Categorization of animacy
No full textA Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology, University of Regina. 22 p.Background: Perception and categorization of entities is a topic that has been studied for years to attempt to determine which level of categorization (Superordinate, Basic, Subordinate) is activated first in perception. Recent evidence indicates that adults start categorizing animals at the superordinate level before narrowing to the basic level. However, no research has investigated whether this effect is also observed in children.
Purpose: With this study I sought to determine whether adults and young children similarly start categorizing animals at the superordinate level.
Method: Participants included (n = 74 adults, n = 76 4- and 5-year-olds) completed blocks of rapid selection tasks, in which they were asked to quickly select one of two images on a touch screen. In one task they were asked to select the animal image as fast as possible, and in the other a dog as fast as possible.
Results: Results revealed that while adults were fastest superordinate decisions, children were fastest at basic decisions.
Implications: These findings suggest that there is developmental change in the categorization and perception of animals, and open the door for future studies into the development of categorization processes.Studentn
"Call him what he is—a cannibal killer": Representations of mental illness in Canadian news and social media through a case study of the Greyhound bus attack
No full textA Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Regina. xii, 289 p.Using the 2008 Greyhound bus attack in Manitoba, Canada, as a case study, this
project explores representations of mental illness in the media. The study analyzes news
coverage of the case from 2008 to 2017, public Facebook comments on stories posted
via news agencies’ Facebook profiles, and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders,
professionals, and subject matter experts. The data were analyzed through a combined
and updated theoretical framework of C. Wright Mills’ sociological imagination and
Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model of communication, and an interpretivist approach
to data analysis using sociological discourse analysis.
The findings of this project demonstrated significant gaps in public understanding
of illnesses such as schizophrenia, particularly when connected to ongoing coverage of
violent crimes in news media. Other major themes found in the analysis included fear of
the dangerous/monstrous Other and a mistrust of public institutions such as the health
care system and government. Critically, the levels of public mistrust identified in this
project led to the development of what I present as “the trust paradox,” wherein public
commenters expressed both outrage at the perceived failings of social systems to
maintain public safety, and a demand that such systems continue to be utilized as a
means of control and surveillance. This project demonstrates that extreme cases such as
the Greyhound bus attack still portray mental illness as dangerous in media narratives.
This research adds to the current discourse on representations of mental illness in the
media by providing an update on previous studies, suggestions for future areas of inquiry
for social media research, and new target areas for consideration in public awareness and
anti-stigma campaigns.Studentye
Psychopathology and comorbidity in public safety personnel: A network analysis
No full textA Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Clinical Psychology, University of Regina. xi, 141 p.The categorical approach to mental health diagnosis employed in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Fifth Edition (DSM-5) proposes that many
symptoms of psychopathology possess the same diagnostic weight and symptoms that are
highly correlated form clusters. Two competing views for why symptoms cluster together
dominated the psychological and psychiatric literature of the 20th century. The most
prevalent psychological theory posits that symptoms cluster together due to unobservable
latent variables—latent variable theory. The most espoused psychiatric theory proposes
that the signs and symptoms of a disorder cluster due to a shared underlying brain disease
pathology. The vast majority of published literature on psychopathology in Public Safety
Personnel (PSP; e.g., firefighters, paramedics, police officers), who due to the nature of
their work are at a higher risk of developing mental health conditions, has been based on
latent and neurobiological theory. The current investigation was designed to assess
models of psychopathology using network theory, which proposes that symptoms of
psychopathology emerge and are perpetuated by feedback loops between symptoms. The
sample was a large, representative cohort of PSP (n = 5319). The results indicated that
the two networks of psychopathology that were estimated, one of posttraumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) symptoms alone, and the other comprising PTSD as well as major
depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms, were
highly connected. The symptom of detachment played a consistent central role in both
networks, while novel clusters of symptoms emerged when compared to latent models
and previously published network models of psychopathology. Future research that
examines personalized time-series networks in the PSP population is needed to replicate
these findings and to move network models from theory to clinical practice.
Methodological and clinical implications are discussed.Studentye
Pointing fingers: moral judgements and law enforcement perception in online true crime communities
No full textA Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology, University of Regina. 22 p.In the digital age, civilian interest in criminal cases has seen an upsurge over the past few years, leading to speculation, misinformation, and action on the part of online users. The November 2022 murder of four college students sent shockwaves across online communities, stoking widespread interest and drawing thousands to a single forum on Reddit. This study sought to analyze digitally-based civilian policing, addressing the current rise of online true crime communities. Leveraging Haidt and Graham’s Moral Foundations Theory (2007), this study examined the psychological processes that may be involved in public information consumption and online behaviour in response to criminal cases. The present research sought to understand whether the ubiquity of criminal cases in online spaces led citizens to participate in websleuthing forums as an outlet for moral judgement. We proposed that moral foundations language would be prevalent in Reddit discussions regarding the Idaho University criminal case and would be associated with police attitudes. Data was collected from the largest Reddit forum pertaining to the case. Both quantitative analyses (independent sample t-tests) and inductive methods (using Pennebaker et al.’s 2022 Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program and qualitative description) were used. Results demonstrated that fairness-related language was more prevalent in posts pertaining to law enforcement. Findings may advance knowledge on community engagement with law enforcement, and the broader scheme of internet culture relative to moral-psychological phenomena
Forged within power relations: A narrative study about non-academics becoming community-based research facilitators
No full textA Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education, University of Regina. xi, 303 p.This dissertation is rooted in my lived experience as an adult educator and my commitment to community-led development. I am committed to seeing more community groups organize themselves and lead change processes to dismantle unjust structures and create a better world. This process commonly occurs through loops of knowledge production, learning, and action known as community-based research (CBR). Although CBR started as a grassroots movement in the Global South, it became institutionalized as an action-oriented research approach which engages community members throughout the participatory project. To date, scholars have given little attention to experiences in which community members function as organic intellectuals by becoming facilitators of knowledge production and change.
This dissertation contributes to the literature by relying on post-structural concepts to understand how community members, depicted as members of civil society and non-academics, and who are CBR facilitators, experience and perceive the production of their subjectivities within power relations. Additionally, how they analyze the relationship between their social location and facilitation work, and their personal care of the self. I define this research as a narrative inquiry disrupted by post-structuralism whereby research participants are invited into a collaborative diffractive analysis based on post-structural philosophical concepts. In this process, I worked with the study participants to weave their stories and theoretical concepts into one another and to make new linkages while the stories shifted and emerged as an assemblage.
The narratives demonstrate how participants were constantly becoming while being the target of practices through which power circulates; producing certain kinds of subjectivities that evoke CBR discourses in their many forms. These facilitators also take up different subject positions locally, creating dynamics of privilege and oppression that potentialize the vehiculation of power in their facilitation work. Insights from their stories helped me to conceive organic intellectuals as capillary agents. The facilitators work as organic intellectuals when they are produced simultaneously by local cultural norms and CBR discourses. This enabled them to make CBR discourses into intelligible practices for local communities. Moreover, these organic intellectuals are always becoming, which opens opportunities to escape subjection, imagine new ways to relate to the world, and (re)imagine facilitation.Studentye
Implementation of a Pharmacy Clinical Instructor Model to Facilitate Experiential Learning within Saskatchewan’s Entry-to-Practice Doctor of Pharmacy Program
No full textIn response to nationally endorsed changes in pharmacy curricula, the University of Saskatchewan College of Pharmacy and Nutrition (CoPN) sought to expand experiential learning for its pharmacy program. In 2010, Canada’s faculties and deans of pharmacy committed to implementing entry-to-practice Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs in all schools by 2020. The expansion and change in credentialing of Canada’s pharmacy training from baccalaureate programs was intended to ensure graduates possess the competencies required within the modern scope of pharmacy practice. To further this transition, the Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy Programs increased the required hours of students’ experiential learning. In Saskatchewan, pre-existing operational and financial pressures on the CoPN, coinciding with the provincial health system’s amalgamation from twelve regional health authorities to a single health authority, prompted a collaborative approach. To address the growing need for practical experience within the Saskatchewan Health Authority, the CoPN implemented clinical instructor positions within tertiary care centres in Saskatoon and Regina. This unique approach among PharmD programs provided financial stability and accountability to student learning, although early student feedback identified several challenges with this model. These findings about the clinical instructor model can guide the ongoing implementation of experiential learning within PharmD and other health care professional programs
A theory of spatial granular computing
No full textA Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science, University of Regina. xv, 316 p.This thesis proposes a theory of spatial granular computing. A granule is composed of one or more atomic granules, and the rationality of this definition is expounded from four aspects: simplicity, applicability, measurability, and visualization. A projection is introduced, which is a one-to-one mapping from granules to points in an nD unit hypercube. Based on this, some basic questions of spatial granular computing are discussed.
When discussing the rough set models from the perspective of micro knowledge space, all the models can be easily applied to incomplete information systems and continuous information systems as well. For any equivalence granule in the macro knowledge space, its spatial rough granule model is introduced and the induced three regions are obtained from each of the three planes. Expansions of the spatial rough granule model are examined in three aspects of binary relation, domain and approximation space. Not only are (fuzzy) tolerance relation, (fuzzy) equivalence relation, and coarse-fine relation but also all operations and models defined by relation matrices, and the properties can be easily proved. By focusing on relation matrices and coarse-fine relation, the reduction of knowledge is strictly related to the general concept of independence, so we can use the bases of micro and macro knowledge spaces for granular analysis, which can successfully solve the bottleneck of computing reducts.
The measures are divided into granularity and fineness. All measure functions that satisfy nonnegativity, monotonicity and norm invarant can be generalized to measure granules. Subsethood holds twelve axioms, and it can be generalized and extended to conditional granularity (entropies) and conditional fineness (entropies) which are used to measure the coarse-fine relation between two granules and satisfy twelve corresponding axioms. Different definitions of similarity and difference may have different axioms which can be divided into three aspects: symmetry, boundary conditions and monotonicity. Nonnegativity can be replaced by boundary conditions, and any one of the kinds of triangle inequalities can be used as monotonic condition.
Structural problems have always been a major challenge in computational science. This thesis explores the multidimensional structures from the perspective of granular computing. Any nD object can be viewed from different dimensions, and it corresponds to an adjacency relation matrix in each view. By discussing the relation between geometry and topology, granular topology algorithm is proposed and it is the general process of granular analysis that all algorithms should follow. By projecting a hypergraph to a hyperedge project graph, all adjacency relations between vertices of the hypergraph are naturally revealed by the meet of the relation vectors corresponding the vertices of the project graph. In this way, it can not only largely reduce the dimension of tensor but also be used to represent any (directed) hypergraph. Two kinds of graph/digraph information systems are defined, each graph/digraph information system can produce one micro and one macro knowledge spaces in which micro and macro rough graph/digraph models are built on its vertices and its edges respectively. This thesis introduces how to obtain the vertex and edge adjacency relation matrices of a quotient graph/digraph, performs structural analysis for fuzzy granules based on their corresponding fuzzy relation matrices respectively as well as for fuzzy graphs/digraphs based on their corresponding vertex and edge adjacency relation matrices respectively, and generalize all measure methods and operations for (equivalence) granules to (equivalence) graphs/digraphs.Studentye
Sandwiched between best practice and morality policy: Harm reduction's pursuit for legitimacy on a contentious frontier
No full textA Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of * in *, University of Regina. ix, 131 pCanada is in the midst of a public health crisis. In 2020 and 2021, jurisdictions across Canada, including Saskatchewan, had a record number of deaths due to drug toxicity and overdose. In 2022, statistics are on pace to once again set records. The current system, including legislation and service delivery, is not working, and addressing substance use and the overdose crisis will require an innovative and comprehensive approach. The literature highlights the merit of harm reduction (HR) services for substance use both in mortality reduction and in treating substance use; yet, investment in and implementation of HR services remains stark. The conversations by many public leaders perpetuate misnomers about substance use and HR, and these conversations go largely unchallenged. People who use drugs and the overdose crisis remains an issue on the margins.
HR is a contentious issue that is politically tied. There is a significant dearth of literature regarding public opinion of HR philosophy and interventions, particularly in the Saskatchewan context. It is reasonable to believe that without public support, further investment will remain stalled. Thus, it is important to develop a baseline of public opinion in order to highlight particular groups that may benefit from targeted education and/or awareness campaigns.
This project uses a mixed methods approach to explore the public opinion of HR services in Saskatchewan. The research highlights the level of understanding, opinions and attitudes the general public has of HR both as a philosophy and of HR’s particular interventions. A commentary is provided on the current political climate in Saskatchewan and the case for HR services as a legitimate player in the addictions field. Suggestions for targeted public education regarding HR are provided.Studentye
Using synchrotron radiation to search for blood vessel structures and preserved soft tissue in dinosaur bones from the Cretaceous period
No full textA Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Physics, University of Regina. 33 p.Micro-computed tomography is a method that can be used paleontologically to investigate fossils in a non-invasive manner. A technique known as Propagation Phase-Contrast Synchrotron Radiation Micro-tomography can be applied to high density bone samples, which produces finestructure bone structure differentiation with high resolution in three-dimensional renderings [4]. In past analyses, possible preserved vascular structures were discovered within a rib bone sample from a Tyrannosaurus Rex. These possible preserved vascular structures were investigated further to test and compare the automated rendering and interpolation features of various applications, including Dragonfly Pro, ImageJ’s Labkit plugin, and Biomedisa. Dragonfly Pro was then utilized to extract fine mixed-density vessel structures from the T. Rex sample and a Hadrosaur neural spine sample.Studentn