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A Flood Tale of Two Cities: St. Catharines and London, ON
Get PDFThe world's growing state of climate change has caused natural disasters to increase significantly. Flood disasters have risen in Ontario and require municipalities to implement flood-resilient measures to create a safer environment for their residents. This research follows a mixed methods approach to compare flood resiliency and determine if the Government of Ontario’s Five Flood Resilience Priorities are being implemented in St. Catharines and London. Four findings are highlighted: firstly, neither municipality satisfies the five flood resiliency priorities the provincial government set out. Secondly, St. Catharines is more vulnerable to flood disasters. Thirdly, London’s basement flooding program is executed exceptionally well compared to St. Catharine’s. The latter needs many improvements to create a more flood-resilient community. Lastly, homeowners in each municipality have varying perspectives on where responsibility for flooding lies. These findings show that, while both cities need to work towards improving their flood resiliency, St. Catharines needs additional improvements
Examining proof-of-concept and acceptability for a brief reframing intervention to increase exercise for individuals with Multiple Sclerosis.
Get PDFMultiple Sclerosis (MS) is a incurable, chronic, progressive disease that affects cognitive and physical functioning, reducing the quality of life. Physical Activity (PA) may help manage MS, but individuals with MS often remain inactive. Reframing, a coaching strategy to challenge negative thoughts, could help overcome PA barriers. This thesis aimed to examine the acceptability of reframing for individuals with MS. This study used a single arm, within subject’s design. Participants (N=22) met the following inclusion criteria: (a) MS diagnosis, (b) currently exercising <90 mins/week, (c) Patient-determined Disability Score < 6. The experiment involved a single ~15-minute reframing session with pre- and post- surveys, a one-week follow-up interview with follow-up surveys and a 4-week follow up survey. Reframing included: (1) identifying biases contributing to negative thinking, (2) challenging the accuracy of these thoughts, and (3) reframing their view to be more accurate. The primary outcomes were PA, decisional struggle, and cognitive biases. Participants completed online surveys (pre/post/one week post/4 weeks post) and were interviewed about their barriers and facilitators to participation, and the perceived acceptability of reframing 1-week post-reframing. An inductive content analysis was used to analyze the interview data, while Repeated Measures ANOVA assessed changes in PA, cognitive errors, and decisional struggle. Cognitive errors significantly decreased (p=0.16, partial eta=.258) from pre-reframing (M=5.32) to 7 days post reframing (M=4.52). Light PA (p=.029, partial eta=.218) increased from pre-reframing (M=2.26) to 1 week post reframing (M=3.14). While moderate-vigorous PA (p=<0.01, partial eta=.460) significantly increased from pre reframing (M=2.76) to 4 weeks post reframing (M=5.76). Changes to PA at all levels were sustained at the 4-week follow-up. No change in decisional struggle was reported. Three overarching themes emerged from the qualitative data: (1) person-centred care, (2) application of reframing for change and (3) considerations for future study conduct. Qualitative findings provided a deeper understanding of changes in thought processes and PA levels, highlighting crucial aspects of the intervention from participants perspectives. These findings outlined ways to tailor reframing more effectively for people with MS. Future research will build on these findings to refine and test this intervention further using a randomized design
Land grant to Rebecca Thomas, October 16, 1810
Get PDFA land grant to Rebecca Thomas signed by Sir Francis Gore, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, October 16, 1810. The document grants 200 acres of land to Rebecca Thomas of the Township of Niagara, County of Lincoln, District of Niagara, wife of Silas Thomas and daughter of George Campbell. The land is in Scott Township, York County, Home District. Francis Gore’s signature appears in the top left corner of the document. It is also signed by P. Selby, Auditor General; William Firth, Attorney General; and William Jarvis, Provincial Secretary
Regions and Provincial Sport Organizations in Ontario, Canada: A Case Study
Get PDFCanada is a large country with a complex political landscape that has evolved over time. Regionalism has been vital in shaping Canada's political and economic development since its inception. Although the implications of regionalism are widely discussed in fields such as economic geography and rural development, little discussion of regions and regionalism (in Canada or abroad) has taken place related to sport policy and management. To date, much of the work in sport management in Canada has been focused on sport at either the national, or community level. As a result of this, much of the established literature to date does not touch upon provincial sport organizations (PSOs), particularly in relation to the understanding of regions and the spaces that fundamentally constitute these organizations. To address this gap, I analyzed how regions are understood and managed by actors within the field. The purpose of this study was to investigate the theoretical and practical implications of regions within sport governance in Ontario, Canada. This research answers the following key questions: 1) how do PSO-affiliated actors understand and construct regions? and 2) how do institutional pressures impact the management of regions within PSOs in Ontario? To answer these questions, an instrumental case study methodology was used to explore these questions within the province of Ontario. Data were collected through document analysis of organizational strategic plans and semi-structured interviews with decision-makers within PSOs. Thematic analysis (TA) was utilized in the analysis of data for this thesis. The dual frameworks of institutional theory and theories of space were utilized as the theoretical backdrop for analysis. Through analysis, three themes were identified in relation to how PSO-affiliated actors understand and construct regions: Recognition of the Province as a Region; Regions are Informally Constructed; and Regions are Formally Structured. This research highlights that regions are understood and managed differently by actors within PSOs, and that institutional pressures (coercive, normative, mimetic) impact organizations differently and ultimately contribute to this understanding and management. This work contributes to the sport management literature through an exploration of how space is constructed, understood, and managed by actors within an institutionalized environment
The Sketchbook as a Learning Tool to Support Student Well-Being: Examining the Perspectives and Practices of Visual Art Teachers
Get PDFThis study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on art education in Ontario, focusing on the sketchbook pedagogies of six secondary Visual Art teachers in the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN). The study investigates whether teachers have modified their sketchbook practices due to the pandemic, and asks for their perspectives on how sketchbooks influence student learning and well-being. Findings indicated that teachers perceived sketchbooks as flexible, holistic, and instrumental to effective art instruction. A majority of teachers noticed an increase in sketchbook use to support student well-being during the pandemic, and many maintained efforts to use sketchbooks this way during the return to in-school instruction. Concerns presented by teachers included a lack of engagement from students when asked to complete practice and planning-based sketchbook tasks, as well as difficulties assessing sketchbooks. Data analysis identified implications for future research regarding sketchbook assessment practices, how to promote student buy-in in light of decreasing motivation, and how to develop purposeful adaptive strategies via sketchbook use for student well-being. The results of this study influenced a companion project in the form of a manual titled: Sketchbooks: A Reference for New Art Educators
Chinese women players’ experiences of oppression and resistance in Honor of Kings
Get PDFGuided by a Chinese intersectional feminist theory perspective, this research identifies and describes the lived experiences of women’s oppression that Chinese women have while playing HoK, the consequences of these experiences for Chinese women who play HoK, and the resistance and coping strategies they use to deal with these experiences. Women’s oppression includes the systemic and often discriminatory challenges and barriers faced by women, in this case within the esports industry and with women’s gaming identities. While esports continue to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry, issues of gender-based harassment, discrimination, and violence within the industry similarly continue to grow. Several research studies have separately examined these issues in esports, but very little research has intersectionally examined the experiences of Chinese women. The context of esport in China is of particular importance to study, not only because of the sheer size of the esport industry in China but because of the complex history of gender relations in China, with women experiencing limits to their inheritance rights, education rights, marriage freedoms, social rights, and political rights.
10 semi-structured interviews (SSIs) were conducted with women HoK players as the primary form of data collection, while unobtrusive data and autoethnographic data were used to supplement and support the interview data. All interviews were conducted in Chinese, audio-recorded, and transcribed into English. All ten participants experienced harassment and discrimination related to their gender identity. Participants in the study identified two significant consequences that result from experiences of discrimination and harassment in HoK. First, it leads to decreased participation. Second, it lowers in game performance and confidence for women. All 10 participants reported some resistance to these negative experiences. These forms of resistance and coping took many forms, such as 1) reporting, 2) blocking and muting, 3) verbal confrontations and arguments, 4) teaming up with friends, 5) gender swapping, and 6) mutual support among women players. Based on this research, seven main strategies for creating meaningful change in HoK are also proposed
Postcard of Victoria Day in Welland, n.d.
Get PDFA black and white postcard of Victoria Day celebrations in Welland. The postcard is a black and white photograph of a crowd in a park or field. There is a small observation tower with children and adults viewing the crowd below. The postcards reads “May 24th at Welland”
The Application of Chaos Game Representations and Deep Learning for Grapevine Genetic Testing
Get PDFThe identification of grapevine species, cultivars, and clones associated with desired traits such as disease resistance, crop yield, crop quality, etc., is an important component of viticulture. True-to-type identification has proven to be very critical and yet very challenging for grapevine due to the existence of a large number of cultivars and clones and the historical issues of synonyms and homonyms. DNA-based identification, superior to morphology-based methods in accuracy, has been used as the standard genetic testing method, but not without shortcomings. To overcome some of the limitations of the traditional microsatellite-marker based on genetic testing, we explored a whole genome sequencing (WGS)-based approach by taking advantage of the latest next-generation sequencing technologies (NGS) for achieving the best accuracy and better availability at affordable cost. To address the challenges of the extremely high dimensional nature of the WGS data, we examined the effectiveness of using Chaos Game Representation (CGR) for representing the genome sequence data and the use of deep learning in visual analysis for species and cultivar identification. We found that CGR images provide a meaningful way of capturing patterns and motifs for use with visual analysis, with the best prediction results demonstrating a 0.990 mean balanced accuracy in classifying a subset of five species. Our preliminary research highlights the potential for CGR and deep learning as a complementary tool for WGS-based species-level and cultivar-level classification
Leukocytes and lactate responses to cycling and running at the same target heart rate
Get PDFHeart Rate (HR) is widely used for erobic exercise intensity prescriptions and/or studies of exercise training. It is often assumed that exercising at a given HR results in similar physiological response, regardless of exercise modality. This study aimed to gauge cellular immune mobilization to submaximal exercise at a given target HR on a cycle ergometer (CE) and treadmill (TM). Thirteen healthy male adults (23.2 ± 3.5 y.o) completed 4 laboratory visits. Participants performed two graded exercise tests to exhaustion on CE and TM and two 30‐min constant exercise challenges at 70% HR reserve on CE or TM in random order. Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) was recorded every 5 min, and blood was drawn before and after exercise to measure leukocytes subpopulation levels, lactate, and IL‐6. HR was successfully “clamped” during the exercise in CE and TM (CE 156.7 ± 1.1; TM 159.3 ± 1.6 bpm). Cycling was perceived as more strenuous than running and was accompanied by a greater increase in lactate post‐exercise (p < 0.0001; 6.2 ± 0.3 vs. 2.9 ± 0.3 mmol/L). IL‐6 and leukocytes subpopulations were significantly elevated post‐exercise (p < 0.003) with no difference between exercise modalities (mono-cytes; CE 57.6% TM 61.2%, granulocytes; CE 41.37%, TM 50.1%, lymphocytes; CE 91.03%, TM 78.8%). The findings revealed that HR is not sufficient in and of itself to fully assess the metabolic stress associated with a given exercise modality. How-ever, despite different metabolic and subjective stress, the IL‐6 and leukocyte counts relative changes were similar in the two modalities
Review of Lapse and Reentry Behavior and Its Impact on the Design of Variable Annuities
Get PDFThis project explores the role of Variable Annuities (VAs) and Registered Index-Linked Annuities (RILAs) within contemporary financial planning, emphasizing how they adapt to evolving market conditions. A comprehensive analysis of these products is provided, including their protective mechanisms, pricing models, and risk characteristics, to explain why they effectively meet investor needs. The evolution from traditional annuities to VAs is traced, and the further development of RILAs from VAs is discussed. The study particularly focuses on the behavior of policyholders who often choose to surrender their policies for more favorable options, thereby maximizing their benefits. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the paper illustrates how these products respond to market developments