University of Saskatchewan Research Archive
Not a member yet
14369 research outputs found
Sort by
EXPLORING THE AFFORDANCES OF OUTDOOR LEARNING: HOW TEACHERS UTILIZED THEM TO ENHANCE THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Get PDFOutdoor learning refers to all forms of learning that take place outside the classroom. This can include specific outdoor education curriculum or other subject areas taught through outdoor experiences. There are many different theories and approaches to outdoor learning, including experiential, environmental, adventure, place or community based, and land-based learning. These approaches may have some differences in goals and methods, but they share similar theoretical foundations and practices. The concept of affordances, which describes the possibilities and opportunities for behavior that objects in the environment offer, is an important theoretical foundation for outdoor learning. The study examined the lived experiences of outdoor learning teachers in relation to how they made use of the affordances available in the outdoor environment using phenomenological methods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted one-on-one with fourteen teachers from Saskatchewan who use the outdoor environment in their teaching practice. Mind-mapping, the hermeneutic circle, and interpretative phenomenological analysis were used to analyse the data. Six themes were identified including: relationships, engagement, flexibility, risk and autonomy, freedom, and health. Out of these themes, six affordances were highlighted including: expansive spaces, distractions, freedom, real, or found, objects, dynamic changeability, and challenge and risk. Teachers utilized these affordances through walks, supporting freedom of expression, camping trips, embracing a student-centered approach, allowing and supporting student interaction with objects, and engaging in challenging or risky activities with proper risk assessment and management. This utilization of the affordances yielded numerous positive benefits including: the development and strengthening of relationships, increased student engagement, student creativity and autonomy, supporting individual learning needs and life skills, and improved student health
In Vitro Spermatogenesis Using Neonatal Piglet Testicular Tissues
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo
Lost and Found? Recapturing Physical and Sensory Retail Experiences After COVID-19
Get PDFAfter COVID-19 struck and consumers were driven into online shopping, researchers began studying the effects of this shift on how consumers experienced brands. One of the retail sectors studied was the high sensory category of beauty and cosmetics (B&C) and how online experiences with the category were being viewed. Since then, even though COVID-19 was still circulating and many people were still fearful, stores reopened. There is a need to understand how consumers re-engaged with in-person shopping, and particularly how they newly interpreted the store’s physical and sensorial environment as they made a cautious re-entry into brick-and-mortar B&C retail stores.
The newness and extreme conditions presented by the pandemic provided a novel environment for study. The attitudes and feelings upon first returning to stores and the differences and similarities between first returning and 20 months following the first stores’ re-opening, required exploration. This study aimed to fill this knowledge gap, using qualitative data collected from twenty participants. The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach and line-by-line method were used for the data analysis and coding. The Stimuli-Organism-Response Theory (S-O-R) and the Holistic Purchase Framework guided the interpretation of the data, revealing attitudes and behaviours associated with in-store shopping in a post-COVID-19 time. While many similarities to pre-COVID-19 times had returned, numerous differences in the in-store shopping experiential were observed. The results suggest that, although in-store shopping has returned, the physical and sensory retail experiences after COVID-19 have not returned to normal. Overall, what consumers lost during COVID-19 has not yet been fully found. This research contributes to the literature by offering knowledge of consumers’ perspectives of the “new normal” holistic shopping experiences and how retailers, marketers, government, and policymakers should adapt their offline and online strategies for the forthcoming scenarios and gain insight into a possible future pandemic
Development and preclinical evaluation of theranostic agents targeting muc16/ca125 and nectin-4 expression in breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo
Development of the Prairie Hydrology Design and Analysis Product (PHyDAP)
Get PDFGlobal Water Futures, Environment and Climate Change CanadaCurrently, there are no tools which account for the complexities of prairie hydrology and hydrography available to hydrological practitioners for calculating return-period flows and flooding at small scales on the Canadian Prairies.
The need for such tools is especially great due to non-stationarity from the effects of climate change and surface drainage.
The Prairie Hydrology Design and Analysis Product (PHyDAP) uses the research results of the Global Water Futures Prairie Water Project to produce a spatial dataset which will allow practitioners to determine return-period flows and flooded areas in a scientifically defensible manner, while incorporating changes in the local climate and land use
WELLBEING INDICATORS OF HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS AND THE INTENTION TO LEAVE THEIR POSITIONS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY FROM SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA, DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo
Diversity and Evolution of Cyclic Peptides in Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.)
Get PDFPlants produce a myriad of compounds in response to various survival challenges. One novel family of natural products are the ribosomally-synthesized cyclic peptides (CPs). They are derived from precursor proteins undergoing post-translational modification (PTM). Potentially acting as defense agents in plants, CPs have various bioactivities for agricultural and pharmaceutical applications. While thousands of CPs have been discovered across multiple plant families over the past decades, limited attention has been paid to their evolution in plants. Here, my thesis begins with a literature review on plant CPs evolution. In brief, plant CPs exhibit 3 types of evolution, namely convergent evolution of the cyclized backbone, parallel evolution of the biosynthetic pathway and divergent evolution of the CP sequences. The increasing application of genome mining to the discovery of new CPs inspired me to explore the diversity of linusorbs, the orbitide class of CPs in cultivated flax (Linum usitatissimum L.).
The first chapter reports my genome mining work using a profile-based approach. The previously found linusorb molecules are derived from 11 unique domains in 5 precursor proteins. Each linusorb domain is flanked by conserved residues, and the entire linusorb-embedded unit is repetitive in most precursor proteins. Based on this pattern I developed profiles to search the reannotated flax genome assembly, and identified 25 novel proteins each containing multiple profile-matching repeats embedded with linusorb-like domains (LLDs). This customized, profile-based mining approach has the advantage of finding unrelated proteins containing putative linusorbs, revealing their potential diversity in the flax genome.
The second chapter analyzes the duplication patterns of these repeats. The gene sequences extracted from genome assembly were first verified by Sanger sequencing. Misassembly of Illumina reads were widely found in the repeat regions of these genes. Pairwise alignment of the corrected and reannotated gene sequences identified 8 groups of paralogues. Examination of repeats based on pairwise similarity discerned 3 modes of tandem duplication differing in the number of repeats as a unit. The significantly lower similarities of repeats across paralogues than within suggested repeat divergence after ancestral gene duplication. The flanking non-repetitive regions also indicated functional divergence across the paralogues.
II
The third chapter investigated the evolution of linusorbs. Both linusorbs and LLDs are moderately hydrophobic in contrast with the hydrophilic spacers. The unexpected predominance of conserved flanking signatures among the LLDs indicated their significant role in PTM and parallel evolution of the processing pathway. The LLD-containing repeats across paralogues are less similar than those within paralogues but more similar than those across non-paralogues, suggesting adaptive evolution of the paralogues. Positive selection was detected to episodically act on repeats within and across protein paralogues. Collectively, linusorb evolution in the flax genome is best described as a multifaceted model of adaptation. These findings in the diversity and evolution of CPs in flax lay a foundation for future studies on the functions and applications of these natural products
Synergistic Effect of Different Testing Environments on Mechanical Characteristics and Failure of X70 Pipeline Steel
No full textRecently, with the depletion of high-quality oil and gas, there has been significant increase in the presence of H2S in transported resources. In the presence of H2S (sour conditions), high strength low alloy (HSLA) steel used in the pipelines is often susceptible to corrosion, hydrogen degradation, embrittlement, and cracking. The ingress of hydrogen results in deterioration of mechanical properties such as ductility, strength, and toughness. In this work, the effect of different hydrogen environments on mechanical behavior of X70 pipeline steels having the same chemical composition but different thermomechanical controlled processing (TMCP) parameters was evaluated. A vast number of mechanical tests have been conducted in the laboratory simulating, to some extent, the environment in which these steels operate. Experimental results of tensile and Charpy tests conducted in different hydrogen environments are discussed and analyzed based on recorded microstructural features, to propose the mechanism of hydrogen embrittlement. In addition, corrosion and crack susceptibility were also evaluated in the sour media. Firstly, optical microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM), electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD), X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to investigate the microstructures and crystallographic texture. Afterwards, tensile tests were performed in different hydrogen environments (in air, ex-situ test, in corrosive media, in-situ test) in order to understand the effect of severity of service environments on hydrogen embrittlement (HE) susceptibility. Additionally, low temperature embrittlement effects were assessed through Charpy impact tests before and after hydrogen charging. Furthermore, fracture surface examination of tensile and Charpy impact test samples was done to explain the role of hydrogen environments on embrittlement mechanisms. Also, electrochemical hydrogen charging was used to induce blisters and cracks in X70 steel plates and subsequently, blistering and hydrogen induce cracking (HIC) susceptibility was examined. In addition, electrochemical corrosion analysis was performed on selected steels in hydrogen charging (acidic) and non-hydrogen charging (saline) media. Slow strain rate tensile test (SSRT) results indicated that synergistic action of tensile stress and hydrogen leads to the largest increase of susceptibility to HE in the in-situ charged sample. SSRT results also revealed that yield strength increased for all steel samples tested in different hydrogen environments; however, the amount of increment was the highest in the in-situ charged samples. On contrary, the ultimate tensile strength did not reveal any particular trend of changes. Low temperature Charpy impact test results indicated that ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT) increased after hydrogen charging in both X70 steel plates. The correlation established between microstructural features and HE susceptibility revealed that steel with the higher volume fraction ratio of Ƴ-fiber /{100}, exhibited higher HE susceptibility. It was also found that low HE susceptible steel had higher fraction of low temperature transformed microstructures such as granular bainite (GB), and martensitic/austenitic islands (M/A). Furthermore, low temperature Charpy tests analysis showed that steels with the higher fraction of {100} and {113} orientation exhibited lower DBTT. Fractographic analysis from the SSRT showed that the fracture type changed from ductile in the ex-situ charged steel to cleavage in the in-situ charged steel, while the SSRT in the corrosive medium exhibited mixed fracture types (ductile and brittle)/quasi cleavage. Likewise, the fracture morphology of the Charpy sample revealed that below -60 °C, the dominant mode of failure in both steel plates is ductile. However, the fracture morphology undergoes a drastic change near -100 °C, where the fracture surface largely transforms to cleavage types. Furthermore, analyses of blistering and HIC on both X70 steel plates revealed that X70-1 is more susceptible to blistering as well as to HIC in the sour environment than X70-2. Although cracking occurred predominantly at inclusions consisting of Al, Ca, Si, O, S, and Ti, blistering occurred both with and without inclusions. Detailed analysis using the hydrogen permeation test demonstrated that X70-2 has a higher hydrogen diffusivity compared to X70-1. In addition, corrosion analysis indicated that both steels have lower corrosion rate in the acidic media than in saline media due to passivation. Moreover, steel with higher fraction of {111} oriented grains, lower misorientations and deformed grains, exhibited higher corrosion resistance in both media. Overall, synergistic action of tensile stress and hydrogen during in-situ hydrogen charging seems to be the most detrimental failure environment for pipeline steel. Additionally, synergy between low temperatures and hydrogen further enhances the tendency of hydrogen embrittlement in steels
The Art of Flood Forecasting : Making a difference on the ground
No full textCanada First Research Excellence FundNon-Peer ReviewedExperience of a Global Water Futures researcher using art to communicate scientific research
ESTIMATING THE INDIRECT IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON NEONATAL MORTALITY IN NEPAL
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo