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Understanding Before Action: Barriers and Facilitators for Parents of Autistic Children’s Participation in Research
Get PDFAbstract
Parenting is both a rewarding and challenging endeavour. Parents of autistic children tend to report lower levels of well-being and higher stress levels compared to parents of non-autistic children. Parent training interventions have been developed to improve parental well-being and decrease autistic youths’ challenging behaviours. To deliver effective and socially meaningful interventions, it is imperative to consider their feasibility, uptake, and acceptability from parents’ perspectives. The present study aimed to understand the barriers and facilitators of research involvement for parents of autistic youth. We used a survey design with qualitative and quantitative components to gather information from parents. Results suggest that logistical concerns that interfere with one’s ability to participate in research (e.g., time constraints, scheduling issues, and location difficulties such as travel time and distance) were primary factors affecting participation. Family characteristics such as additional caregiver demands, caregiver burnout, having more than one child on the spectrum, child behavioural challenges, and child characteristics were also described as factors affecting participation. Future researchers should consider these factors when conceptualizing studies involving parents to promote social validity and enhance research quality.
Keywords: Autism, parenting, barriers, facilitators, research participatio
mKdV Loop Travelling Waves and Interactions of Loop Solitons
Get PDFThe modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation is an integrable nonlinear evolution
equation which has applications in modeling various physical phenomena. It also describes
the curvature of curve which undergoes a certain non-stretching geometrical evolution
in the Euclidean plane. This curve motion finds applications in various areas, such
as describing the dynamics of inelastic rope, modeling the evolution of the boundary of
vortex patch (swirling region) in thin, sheet-like layer of incompressible fluid, and understanding
the behavior of electrons quantized in thin-layered materials by studying the
boundaries of electron cloud densities under strong electromagnetic fields.
This study focuses on mKdV curve motions called loop solutions. One class arises
from soliton, heavy-tail (rational), and periodic solutions of the mKdV equation. These
loop solutions exhibit intriguing symmetrical shapes: the soliton and heavy-tail cases
describe a single loop which is open, and asymptotically straight or circular, respectively;
the periodic case describes both open and closed loops which can have multiple crossings.
Additionally, a class of colliding loop solutions are obtained from the 2-soliton solution
of the mKdV equation. The collisions show interesting interaction patterns. A summary
of different types of patterns will be given by categorizing the various shapes that occur
during the interaction, which depend on the speed ratio of the initial two loops.
Analytical and numerical methods are employed to determine the loop solutions for
both classes, as well as the conditions determining interaction type in the case of collision.
These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the mKdV equation and solitons
Program verifying solution formulae for ternary CA induced by semigroups
No full textThis program produces spatio-temporal patterns for any of the 18 ternary CA rules induced by semigroups. User needs only to change the number in the line "rule=number", the number must be 1 to 18. Numbers are the same as in the paper "Ternary cellular automata induced by semigroups of order 3 are solvable". The output consists of three pictures:
(1) pattern generated by the CA rule by normal iterations;
(2) the same pattern generated from the solution formula;
(3) the difference between them (should be empty - all white).Program for verifying solution formulae for 18 cellular automata induced by semigroups, as listed in the paper "Ternary cellular automata induced by semigroups of order 3 are solvable", Proceedings of AUTOMATA 2025
An Act to Incorporate the Town of Saint Catharines, March 29, 1845
Get PDFThe St. Catharines area was first settled by United Empire Loyalists in the late eighteenth century. The agricultural community grew and saw the establishment of many mills along Twelve Mile Creek. For a while the settlement was known as Shipman’s Corner after tavern owner Paul Shipman. The village later became known as St. Catharines, possibly named after Catharine Askin Robertson Hamilton, the wife of prominent businessman Robert Hamilton. From 1824 to 1829, the first Welland Canal was built, incorporating Twelve Mile Creek as part of its route. This established St. Catharines as the most important industrial centre in Niagara. By 1845 St. Catharines was incorporated as a town.
Around the 1850s St. Catharines became known as a health spa that saw wealthy patrons visit from across Canada and the southern United States. It also became a stop along the Underground Railroad that helped fugitive slaves seeking freedom. Harriett Tubman lived in St. Catharines for several years in the 1850s and used her home as a base.An Act to incorporate the Town of Saint Catharines, March 29, 1845. A royal coat of arms is on the cover and below reads “Anno Octavo Victoria Reign. CAP. LXIII.” Printed in Montreal by Stewart Derbishire and George Desbarats. The Act describes the organization and government of the Town including elections, by-laws, infrastructure, and commercial activities.
The document is 17 pages and contains printed notes in the margin describing the contents. Notes include the division of the town into four wards; election of members of Corporation; qualification of voters; annual elections; oaths of person presiding at elections; candidates’ qualifications; perjury; election of President; making by-laws; appointment of officers; filling vacancies; contested elections; and the summoning and examining of witnesses
Road Maps of England and Wales from the atlas Britannia, 1675, 1698
Get PDFJohn Ogilby (1600-1676) was a Scottish translator, impresario, and cartographer. At the age of eleven, Ogilby was apprenticed to a dance master in London. By 1617 he was an accomplished dancer and teacher, although an injury in 1619 ended his career as a dancer. In 1633 Ogilby went to Ireland to serve as a dancing tutor to the wife and children of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Stafford. While in Ireland, he established its first theatre, the Werburgh Street Theatre. When the Irish Rebellion of 1641 forced the theatre’s closure, Ogilby learned Latin and translated the complete works of Virgil. He later learned Greek and translated some of Homer’s work as well.
In 1669 Ogilby began publishing a series of atlases of China, Japan, Africa, Asia, and America. In 1671 he proposed making a detailed survey and atlas of Great Britain. The King appointed him Royal Cosmographer and Ogilby began working on Britannia. In 1675, Ogilby’s first and only volume of Britannia was published, a road atlas of England and Wales. He died the following year.Contains twenty-two colour maps from John Ogilby’s 1675 and 1698 road atlas of England and Wales, titled Britannia. Each map contains multiple strips. Each strip represents a part of the road and the surrounding environment, with the top of one strip continued at the bottom of the strip next to it. The maps are numbered in the bottom right corner to indicate the proper order. Many of the maps are missing, and the remaining ones have been grouped together by their assigned number. The title of each map is surrounded by an illustration or decorative border. The maps note towns and counties as well as landscape features such as hills, rivers, bridges, some buildings such as churches and mills, notable side roads, and the relative size of towns. A 1970s reproduction of the complete 1675 atlas is available in Archives and Special Collections with the title “Ogilby's road maps of England and Wales from Ogilby's ‘Britannia’, 1675” (SPCL G 1808 O302 1971)
Finding ways to support the transition to accessible martial arts services across Shintani Wado Kai Karate Federation dojos
Get PDFKarate is a relatively popular activity that improves self-esteem, self-discipline, and cognitive functioning. It serves as an outlet for aggression and improves social skills and emotional regulation. Additionally, it provides significant health benefits and fosters community, spiritual growth and acceptance of others. Studies indicate a gap in accessible, adaptive physical activity programs across Canada. Since there are already thousands of karate clubs operating in Canada, a conclusion can be made that finding ways to support accessible karate services is a feasible and sustainable approach to reducing gaps in services. The Shintani Wado Kai Karate Federation (SWKKF) is a not-for profit, national karate organization that has over seventy registered karate clubs operating in Canada. Utilizing a qualitative methodology, thirteen SWKKF karate club business owners and / or instructors were interviewed to better understand the barriers and facilitators to providing accessible karate services in their own communities. The inductive analysis generated three overarching themes that are: Keeping the legacy alive: What would Shintani do? The Floor: Spaces that foster relationships and belonging; and Unresolvable tensions: Maintaining Shintani values. The deductive analyses were generated using Disability Studies (DS) literature-driven typologies and a Human Systems Theory (HST) lens. The DS typologies confirmed by the deductive analysis were Able-ism, Enlightened ableism, Dis-ableism, and Mundane dis-ableism. The HST generated themes include regional disparities, barriers and facilitators from different points of view, and barriers and facilitators across different levels. The discussion integrates the findings from the inductive and deductive analyses with cultural change management concepts and concludes that the SWKKF can offer strategies that have the potential to empower instructors to support and facilitate organization wide instructor training that includes knowledge and application in the following areas regarding accessibility: policy, adapting instruction and karate, adapting services, targeting and promotion of services, accessing resources and building alliances with community members and organizations
Aging and Event Segmentation
Get PDFEpisodic memory, our memory for events in our lives, typically becomes less detailed and more prone to error with advancing age. An extensive literature exists investigating age-related memory decline using simple stimuli (e.g., words, pictures), but fewer studies have used naturalistic stimuli (e.g. narratives, films) which may help to understand how age affects memory for more complex events. In the current thesis, I employ concepts from the event cognition literature to propose that age differences in event processing at encoding is an important factor in age-related episodic memory decline. To test this, I first used a memory-based behavioural measure of the segmentation of events in a movie to examine age differences in the role of event distinctiveness in memory performance. I then used electroencephalography (EEG) to test implicitly whether older and younger adults differ in their perception of event boundaries and/or the distinctiveness of those boundaries (i.e., the degree of neural change moving from one event to the next). Across these experiments, I show that the strength (or distinctiveness), but not necessarily the location, of event boundaries was important for memory performance, especially for older adults. Leveraging these findings, I then evaluated a potential intervention to improve event memory in older adults which was intended to create more distinct event boundaries while reinforcing memory through a process similar to retrieval practice. The effectiveness of this intervention, paired with our findings that event boundary distinctiveness predicts memory performance in older adults, supports the hypothesis that the organization of continuous experiences during memory encoding plays an important role in episodic memory performance, particularly in older adults
Benson family collection, 1866-1899, n.d.
Get PDFThomas Benson (1804-1857) was born in Ireland. He came to North America with his parents in 1816, eventually settling in Kingston in 1819. Benson became a merchant and moved to Port Hope for business in 1832. During the Rebellion of 1837 he was captain of the volunteers at Chippawa and Navy Island. When hostilities recurred in 1839 Benson was captain and paymaster of the 3rd Battalion of Incorporated Militia at Niagara. By 1845 the Battalion had disbanded, and several years later he went to Peterborough. He became the first mayor of the Town of Peterborough. In 1853 he moved to Port Hope as secretary and treasurer of the Peterborough and Port Hope Railway Co. He died in the Desjardins Canal crash on 12 March 1857 and is buried in Port Hope.
His son Thomas Moore Benson (1833-1915) studied law in Peterborough and Port Hope. He was called to the bar in 1859 and began practicing in Port Hope. In 1882 he was Deputy Judge of the county court and local Judge of the High Court of Justice. During the Fenian Raids of 1866 he was Lieutenant of a company of infantry enrolled in one of the Provisional Battalions under Lt. Col. C.J. Williams. In 1866 he married Mary Edith McCaul (daughter of Rev. John McCaul, President of University College). She gave birth to three daughters, but died in 1870 in childbirth. Benson married Laura Abigail Fuller (daughter of Thomas Brock Fuller, first Bishop of Niagara) in 1874. They had four children.The collection consists of four albums and a portrait of a young woman. Three albums contain carte-de-visite and one album is a scrapbook containing illustrations and photographs. The carte-de-visite albums include some notable Niagara people and groups including Thomas Rodman Merritt and his wife Mary Benson; Cynthia Street Fuller (daughter of Samuel Street and wife of Thomas Brock Fuller); and the Durham Regiment at camp in Thorold at the time of the Fenian Raid in 1866
The Financial Burden Associated with Alternate Level of Care Patients in Niagara Region Hospitals.
Get PDFBackground: One of the key contributors to healthcare pressures is the prolonged hospitalization of Alternate Level of Care (ALC) patients—individuals who remain in hospital due to non-medical barriers to discharge. This study aimed to analyze the cost associated with an ALC designation.
Objective: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the financial impact of an ALC designation from both organizational and societal perspectives.
Methods: A convergent parallel mixed methods design was used. The quantitative component included a secondary data analysis of the OCCI database was performed while the qualitative component utilized a deductive content analysis.
Results: The OCCI database included 4,367 patient encounters, with an average age of 77.9 years and a median LOS of 19.5 days. The qualitative component included 6 participants, of which three were care-partners (Mage=59 years) and three were ALC-designated patients (Mage=76.7 years). In the OCCI database, males were found to have a higher expense per ALC day, averaging a daily cost of 275). Younger (<65 years) patient encounters were found to cost more (317]) per ALC. Long-stay ALC patients (≥30 days), per ALC day, averaged 8,761 (SE $199) per entry. Out-of-pocket costs for ALC patients and care partners can be categorized into four categories: expected/acceptable, unexpected/unacceptable, discretionary, situational and greater patient concerns.
Conclusions: Overall ALC-related costs have major impacts on overall hospital budget. Trends in functional group usages can be used to determine and identify areas in which a prolonged discharge yield higher costs. Within the OCCI database, males and those <65 years-old accrue higher costs during the ALC portion of their hospital stay. Systematically, in-patient nursing contributes the highest functional cost associated with an ALC designation. Inovatively, out-of-pocket costs for amenities and transportation were mostly incurred by ALC patients and their care partners
Advancing detection, genomics, and secretome analysis of oomycete pathogens Phytophthora capsici and Phytopythium vexans to explore mechanisms of pathogenesis and biocontrol solutions
Get PDFSoilborne oomycete pathogens pose persistent challenges to vegetable production systems, particularly in Ontario, Canada, where Phytophthora capsici and the recently reported Phytopythium vexans have emerged as significant threats. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying their pathogenicity is critical for developing informed, site-specific disease management strategies. This thesis integrates comparative genomics, effector biology, and molecular diagnostics to enhance our understanding of their pathogenicity and support effective disease management.
The first component of this work focuses on P. capsici, where whole-genome sequencing of two Canadian isolates (55330 and 55898) revealed compact genomes yet retained a broad array of RxLR and CRN effectors. Comparative analyses with reference strains LT263 and LT1534 v11.0 uncovered both conserved and unique effectors, suggesting that local adaptation may be shaping pathogenic potential in response to regional crop pressures.
Building on this, the second component shifts to P. vexans, a novel strain recently reported in Ontario from apple tree soil. The SS21 P. vexans strain genome was sequenced and compared with the only two openly available strains HF1(China), and (CBS 119.80) (Iran). The genomic analysis reveals similar genome between the Canadian strain SS21 and the reference genomes, additionally SS21 displayed a reduce CAZymes, RxLR and CRN effectors, suggesting a niche adaptation to a specific Canadian agro-ecosystem.
The final component of this thesis focuses on the development of an amplitude-based multiplex droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) assay. Designed for simultaneous quantification of P. capsici, Trichoderma asperellum, and Trichoderma gamsii in soil, this assay was validated in field trials and offers high sensitivity and specificity. The assay displayed a high sensitivity with a limit of detection of 1 pg/µL DNA. The use of multiplex ddPCR offers practical solution for monitoring pathogen and biocontrol populations in complex soil environments