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Type and Timing of Childhood Maltreatment and the Impact on Trajectories of Borderline Personality Disorder
No full textBorderline personality disorder (BPD) is a chronic and debilitating condition characterized by affective instability, impulsivity, and interpersonal difficulties. Although childhood maltreatment is a known risk factor for BPD, few studies have examined the combined impact of the type (sexual or physical) and timing (pre-elementary, elementary, or high school) of maltreatment on the longitudinal development of BPD symptoms. This gap in knowledge was addressed by analyzing trajectories of BPD symptoms across early adulthood (ages 20 to 26) using data from the McMaster Teen Study, a longitudinal cohort of 701 participants. A two-class latent trajectory model revealed low stable (78%) and moderate stable (22%) symptom groups. Hierarchical logistic regressions indicated that both sexual and physical maltreatment were significant predictors of moderate BPD symptom trajectories, with sexual maltreatment demonstrating a stronger effect. Additionally, maltreatment experienced during pre-elementary and elementary school significantly predicted categorization into the moderate stable BPD symptom trajectory, while high school maltreatment did not. Gender and bullying victimization were also significant covariates, with women more likely to fall into the moderate stable group. These findings emphasize the importance of early prevention and intervention efforts, specifically, targeting children exposed to early-life adversity, and highlight developmental timing as a key factor in the etiology of BPD
Association between maternal plasma glucose levels during pregnancy and risk of preterm birth: a retrospective study
No full textAbstract Background Preterm birth is a leading cause of health problems and death in infants. This study aims to investigate the association between maternal plasma glucose levels during pregnancy and risk of preterm birth. Methods This population-based retrospective study of 6,842 pregnant women used data from a tertiary hospital in China from January 2016 to December 2022. Plasma glucose levels were measured at fasting, 1 h, and 2 h after a 75-g OGTT between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation. The primary outcome of interest was preterm birth. Analysis was performed using restricted cubic splines and logistic regression models. Results The proportion of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and preterm birth in this study were 7.92% and 5.86%, respectively. The levels of fasting plasma glucose (aOR: 1.26; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.47; P = 0.003; P for nonlinear = 0.264), 1-hour plasma glucose (aOR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.03, 1.17; P = 0.003; P for nonlinear = 0.535), and 2-hour plasma glucose (aOR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.19; P = 0.012; P for nonlinear = 0.368) showed statistically significant linear associations with an increased risk of preterm birth. Conclusion Elevated plasma glucose levels during pregnancy statistically significantly increase the risk of preterm birth. Given that hyperglycemia during pregnancy can be prevented and managed, it is crucial to enhance health education and glucose monitoring for pregnant women. Timely interventions should be implemented to control plasma glucose levels, thereby reducing the incidence of preterm birth
Implementation of a Quantum Twisting Microscope
No full textTwo dimensional (2D) materials are widely studied for both pure scientific interest and potential real world applications. Recently, the effect of a relative twist between 2D materials has generated a lot of interest. This has motivated the need for experimental techniques that can create samples with in-situ twist to avoid individual fabrication of samples at fixed angles. Additionally, many of the effects of twist require a fully momentum resolved band structure to fully appreciate them. This thesis describes and provides steps to replicate a recently developed novel scanning probe technique, the quantum twisting microscope (QTM), which provides an approach to overcoming both of these problems by facilitating the creation and characterization of 2D material interfaces with arbitrary twist angle
« Sœurs de cœur » : Représentations du duo féminin dans Les Fous de Bassan d'Anne Hébert et Parallèles de Marguerite Andersen ; suivi par Ressac
No full textPartie recherche: La présence des amitiés féminines dans la littérature franco-canadienne n'est pas tout à fait ancienne. En effet, un long silence a été observé quant à ces amitiés, qui n'étaient pas prises en compte comme l'étaient celles entre les hommes. La représentation littéraire des amitiés féminines prend alors une importance particulière. La visée de cette thèse sera d'étudier deux duos fusionnels féminins : Nora et Olivia, des Fous de Bassan d'Anne Hébert, et Marguerite et Lucienne, de Parallèles de Marguerite Andersen. Les apparentes différences de ces deux duos, que ce soit l'âge, le milieu, le moment où se noue l'amitié ou encore le contexte social, mettent en réalité en lumière leurs similarités. Cette thèse a pour ambition d'établir quelles sont les caractéristiques des « sœurs de cœur », c'est-à-dire à quels enjeux internes ou externes elles doivent faire face et de quelles façons ces perturbations nuisent à la loyauté et à l'affection qu'elles éprouvent l'une pour l'autre.
Partie création: Dans la partie création, on suit un duo féminin, Joana et Mathilde, au cours de leur amitié, de ses débuts jusqu'à sa fin. Leurs circonstances font qu'elles sont souvent séparées mais maintiennent malgré tout une grande proximité, amplifiée par leurs fréquentes retrouvailles et les années vécues ensemble. Elles ont chacune des difficultés particulières qu'elles traversent indépendamment tout en tirant soutien et réconfort l'une dans l'autre. J'explorerai dans cette création littéraire le rôle que deux femmes peuvent jouer l'une pour l'autre et l'émerveillement de l'amitié fusionnelle à divers âges de la vie. Je tenterai aussi de transcrire les défis qui viennent avec un tel attachement à une autre personne, comme le besoin d'espace qui est souvent inhérent aux relations très intenses. Mon but dans ce texte sera cependant de représenter un duo solide, comme une forme de symbiose dont les deux participantes sortent grandies.
Autoréflexion: Les deux œuvres à l'étude ainsi que la création emploient la forme fragmentaire, dont la définition ne fait pas l'unanimité du fait de sa complexité. Plusieurs types de ruptures composent la forme fragmentaire et l'autoréflexion aura pour objectif d'explorer les différentes ruptures présentes dans les textes à l'étude, de saisir leur sens et l'effet qu'elles peuvent avoir, et de montrer comment elles se manifestent aussi dans la partie création. Le processus de création m'aura également donné de nouveaux outils pour mieux comprendre la représentation de la femme double mais aussi la forme fragmentaire ; je détaillerai donc en quoi la création littéraire a influé sur les résultats de ma recherche, et inversement
Transparency in Government of Canada Public Procurement Practices: Beyond Vision and Voice?
No full textThis dissertation investigates how transparency is operationalized by the Government of Canada (GoC) in the procurement activities it conducts through the Buyandsell.gc.ca and Proactive Disclosures - Contract Dataset platforms. The former is the central hub for federal-level procurement activities, and the latter is the key hub for accessing information about government contracts and expenditures. Drawing upon Meijer, Curtin, and Hillebrandt's (2012) vision and voice framework for investigating transparency, this dissertation asks: How are vision and voice manifest in GoC procurement activities that occur via its two main procurement platforms? A multi-method qualitative approach, combining desk-based analysis of the Buyandsell.gc.ca and Proactive Disclosures - Contract Dataset platforms and 13 semi-structured interviews with private sector, civil society, and federal government key informants was used to investigate this question. The desk-based phase focused on visibility, assessing information accessibility, usability, and quality at the platforms. The second phase focused on constraints hindering information visibility for stakeholders and its implications for their interests being heard. Private sector participants reported difficulties in accessing timely and relevant information needed to engage in transactions and transparency-related policy discussions. Civil society participants emphasized systemic barriers to meaningful engagement as impediments to achieving transparency. Government officials stressed operational challenges as the key impediments to meeting transparency objectives. Given the small size of the research sample, the findings of this study are necessarily tentative but do suggest a need both for expanding the conceptualization of voice within the Meijer et al. (2012) framework and for revisiting how procurement-related transparency initiatives are designed and implemented
La fonction du droit criminel selon la doctrine juridique canadienne : Les enjeux de cette conception pour l'évolution du système de droit criminel moderne
No full textCette recherche propose d'étudier la façon dont la doctrine juridique canadienne définit la fonction du système de droit criminel moderne, ainsi que les implications de cette définition sur son évolution identitaire. D'un point de vue théorique, cette thèse mobilise à la fois la théorie de la rationalité pénale moderne d'Alvaro P. Pires, en lien avec la théorie des systèmes sociaux de Niklas Luhmann. La première permet de problématiser l'immobilisme du système de droit criminel en ce qui a trait à son évolution identitaire, tandis que la deuxième permet de mieux saisir la façon dont un système social, dans sa manière de concevoir sa fonction, peut également créer des obstacles à cette évolution. Sur le plan méthodologique, cette étude a recours à l'analyse qualitative des textes eux-mêmes analytiques du droit criminel et du droit pénal canadien en guise de porte d'accès à l'auto-description fonctionnelle du système de droit criminel moderne. En outre, cette étude permet de mieux comprendre ce qui, sur le plan identitaire du système, fait obstacle à son évolution et contribue à la reproduction de son système de pensée dominant
Does Sex Matter? : An in vitro Study on Sex-Simulated Microbiome in Response to a Psychotropic Drug
No full textSex hormone and gut microbiota interactions are known to play a significant role in mental health and psychotropic medication responses. This study aimed to explore the sexually differentiated impact of psychotropic medication on the gut microbiome composition and diversity, with a focus on sex steroid hormones. Our findings demonstrate that psychotropic medications influence gut microbial diversity differently in male and female models. Notably, females exhibited a higher abundance of Bacteroidota and lower Firmicutes at 24h, while males displayed an opposite trend. Additionally, the α-diversity was significantly lower in females, indicating reduced microbial evenness, although no significant differences in β-diversity were observed. Psychotropic treatment resulted in increased microbial diversity in both sexes, with shifts in key taxa, such as Eubacterium coprostanoligenes and Sutterella in females, along with alterations in short-chain fatty acid production, particularly in acetate, propionate, and butyrate. These results suggest that sex hormones play an important role in modulating gut microbiome composition and their interactions with psychotropic drugs. These findings emphasize the need to consider sex-specific microbiome profiles and hormonal status when optimizing psychotropic treatments for mental health problems
Space and Power: A Postcolonial Feminist Geographic Critique of Disaster Reconstruction in Haiti
No full textGeography enjoys complex theories of space. Feminist geographer Doreen Massey (2005) argues space is relational and multiple, a product and producer of social relations. By comparison, disaster scholars and the field of disaster studies engage with space minimally. Often, space is simply viewed as the static container within which things happen. This thesis aims to extend disasters' spatiality beyond floodplain boundaries and seismic mapping to reimagine space as a logic of power. Here, I locate the popular disaster response slogan build back better which reframes disasters as an opportunity to bring about positive change (Cheek & Chmutina, 2024) and follow this phrase to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Build back better frames Haiti's official response and recovery through two key documents (what I term master disaster texts): the Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) and the Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti (PARDH).
I use a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) supported by a feminist geographic and postcolonial theoretical framework to examine the discursive role of space in Haiti's disaster response texts and to unpack the power bound up in the better world they propose. I engage with material response and recovery phases as well as imagined, possible futures which shape but also exceed the disaster management cycle. I refer to these dimensions collectively as Haiti's refondation. Through my FCDA of Haiti's master disaster texts, space emerges both as key tool in Haiti's refondation and as a site of negotiation. Six spatial themes are visible in the PDNA and PARDH, identified through coding. Analyzing their use in context, I find that Haitian space is reimagined through the productive rationalities and relations of neoliberalism, most likely at the instruction of foreign forces. Here, I trace the PDNA and PARDH's rescaling of the disaster from local to national levels where the myth of the modern state is invoked. Once there, a new (old) problem emerges: concentration and centralization around Port-au-Prince or the Haitian State's incomplete relationship with population and territory. A spatial solution is proposed: development hubs evenly spaced out across the country and connected to remake Haiti into the right order of things and governable in neoliberal terms and relations. I also locate a response from the Haitian State in which it carves out a space for itself in refondation, not by challenging the so-called rules of the game but rather its own position within be in relation to them.
This research demonstrates that space matters to disasters. In the case of Haiti's refondation, space is at the heart of reconstructing Haiti materially and producing desirable relations (for some) within an unequal international system. These findings reaffirm that the way we think and write about disasters is important, including their spatiality. Doing so works to bring into being a certain future amongst many and to define what actions are rendered imaginable and by whom. Feminist geographies and postcolonial studies provide an apt framework to uncover the gendered and raced dimensions of building back better accounting for the structural inequalities perpetuated by patriarchy and colonialism. This theoretical pairing should be considered beyond the case of the 2010 Haiti earthquake as should more investigations into the space and spatiality of disasters more broadly
How do Children (and Adults) Interpret Confidence Cues?
No full textWe often think that children absorb everything that they are told, but they are in fact quite selective when learning from others. For instance, previous research has demonstrated that children prefer to imitate and learn from a confident individual over a hesitant one. Importantly, very few studies to date have examined why children use confidence cues. In this dissertation, I thus focus on how confidence cues are interpreted. In Experiment 1, whether preschoolers interpret confidence cues as situational or person-specific was examined. Experiments 2a and 2b explored children's and adults' interpretation of confidence cues as epistemic or social and examined the preference for confidence as opposed to the hesitancy avoidance. Results from Experiment 1 indicate that 4- and 5-year-olds primarily treat confidence cues as situational when learning novel words. Experiment 2a suggests that adults associate confidence to both knowledge-related and social traits, whereas findings from Experiment 2b reveal that children ages 7 to 10 mainly perceive confidence as an indicator of knowledge (i.e., making knowledge- related attributions). Experiments 2a and 2b also indicate a hesitancy avoidance in adults and school-age children where hesitancy appears more salient and impactful than confidence. These findings have important implications for developmental research and, more specifically, for children's selective learning. It enlightens us on the situational interpretation of confidence cues, at least for younger children, hints towards a developmental progression in the attribution of traits inferred from confidence and reveals that hesitancy and confidence seems to be treated differently
Combining theory and usability testing to inform optimization and implementation of an online primary care depression management tool
No full textAbstract Background The ‘Ottawa Depression Algorithm’ is an evidence-based online tool developed to support primary care professionals care for adults with depression. Uptake of such tools require provider behaviour change. Identifying issues which may impact use of an innovation in routine practice (i.e. barriers to and enablers of behaviour change) informs the selection of implementation strategies that can be deployed with the tool to support use. However, established theory-informed barriers/enablers assessment methods may be less well suited to identifying issues with tool usability. User testing methods can help to determine whether the tool itself is optimally designed. We aimed to integrate these two methodological approaches to i) identify issues impacting the usability of algorithm; and ii) identify barriers to and enablers of algorithm use in routine practice. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with primary care professionals in Ottawa, Canada. To evaluate usability, participants used a written patient scenario to work through the algorithm while verbalizing their thoughts (‘Think Aloud’). Participants were then asked about factors influencing algorithm use in routine practice (informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework). We used the codebook approach to thematic analysis to assign statements to pre-specified codes and develop themes pertaining to usability and routine use. Results We interviewed 20 professionals from seven practices. Usability issues were summarised within five themes: Optimizing content and flow to align with issues faced in practice, Enhancing the most useful algorithm components, Interactivity of the algorithm and embedded tools, Clarity of presence, purpose, or function of components, and Navigational challenges and functionality of links. Barriers to and enablers of routine use were summarised within five themes: Getting to know the algorithm, Alignment with roles and pathways of influence, Integration with current ways of working, Contexts for use, and Anticipated benefits and concerns about patient communication. Conclusions Whilst the Ottawa Depression Algorithm was viewed as a useful tool, specific usability issues and barriers to use were identified. Supplementing a theory-based barriers/enablers assessment with usability testing provided enhanced insights to inform optimization and implementation of this clinical tool. We have provided a methods guide for others who may wish to apply this approach