39568 research outputs found
Sort by
Sex Differences in Asthma-Related Healthcare Utilization and Expenditure in the United States
No full textAsthma affects over 28 million United States residents, creating significant healthcare and economic burdens. While sex differences in asthma prevalence are known, less is understood about how they shape healthcare use and costs across ages. Using data from 32,875 adults aged 18-64 in the 2007-2022 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, this study applied a two-part hurdle model for utilization and a two-part GLM for expenditures. Females (60% of the weighted sample) reported more visits and spent an additional 312.72 more on emergency care, with 26-34 year-old females having the highest added cost ($333.81), compared to the younger adults (18-24years). Public insurance increased healthcare use among females, and racial disparities raised emergency visits for Black individuals, suggesting the need for targeted asthma policies
Understanding Stakeholder Perspectives, Policies, and Practices for Adoption of Canada’s Food Guide and Sustainable Diets in Pilot Test Sites
No full textSignificant shifts in nutritional habits have been observed throughout Canada and the rest of the world resulting in a rise in the number of people suffering from under-over- and/or malnutrition, which then contributes to the prevalence of non-communicable chronic diseases. Additionally, current dietary habits have impacted the environment negatively and contributed to losses in culinary skills and cultural food knowledge. An evidence-based approach that has proven effective in addressing these challenges is the adoption of sustainable diets, which is dependent on the development of supportive food environments. This study examines policies and practices, and explores stakeholder perspectives concerned with the adoption of Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) and sustainable diets within institutional food environments. Focusing on three pilot sites: Site 1, Site 2, and Site 3 (the exact site names have been withheld to uphold the anonymity of the parcipants), the research employs a qualitative approach, utilizing focus group discussions with health and food service professionals (FSPs). Thematic analysis of the data reveals economic constraints, policy deficits, operational challenges, and cultural resistance as systemic barriers to sustainable diet adoption. Key enablers identified include leadership commitment, interdisciplinary collaboration, community engagement, and strategic communication. The findings highlight the tension between aspirational dietary guidelines and on-the-ground implementation, emphasizing the need for multi-level interventions that align policy, practice, and education. This study advocates for the implementation of culturally adaptive menu planning, binding local procurement targets, and workforce training focused on the health and ecological dimensions of sustainable diets. Additionally, it recommends the establishment of institutional food charters to bridge the gap between sustainability goals and practical implementation, ensuring alignment between policy and operational realities. This research contributes to the discourse on sustainable food systems by offering actionable strategies for public institutions to promote healthier, environmentally conscious dietary practices while addressing equity and feasibility.Significant shifts in nutritional habits have been observed throughout Canada and the rest of the world, resulting in a rise in the number of people suffering from under-over- and/or malnutrition, which then contributes to the prevalence of non-communicable chronic diseases. Additionally, current dietary habits have impacted the environment negatively and contributed to losses in culinary skills and cultural food knowledge. An evidence-based approach that has proven effective in addressing these challenges is the adoption of sustainable diets, which is dependent on the development of supportive food environments. This study examines policies and practices, and explores stakeholder perspectives concerned with the adoption of Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) and sustainable diets within institutional food environments
The role of culture and stigma in understanding when gaming disorder symptoms lead to help-seeking intentions
No full textBackground: Engagement in video games continues to grow globally. However, gaming can be addictive, with the World Health Organization introducing gaming disorder (GD) as a new diagnosis in the International Classification of Diseases. GD can lead to negative consequences, yet the current rates of help-seeking remain quite low. This two-study dissertation examined factors that influence help-seeking intentions for GD symptom severity, specifically focusing on sociocultural factors (e.g., self-stigma, culture). Method: In Study 1, I interviewed 32 Canadian frequent gamers of either East Asian or European cultural origin in a qualitative study that explored the impact of culture and self-stigma on help-seeking intentions through individual semi-structured interviews, coded using content analysis. In Study 2, I aimed to extend the findings from Study 1 with a large, representative sample of Canadian frequent gamers (N = 930). Gamers of either East Asian (n = 195) or European (n = 735) heritage completed questionnaires regarding demographics and culture, self-stigma, GD symptom severity, and help-seeking intentions. Parallel process moderation analyses were conducted with GD symptom severity (predictor), intentions to seek help (outcome), and culture of origin and self-stigma (moderators), after controlling for gender and level of education. Results: Study 1 highlighted the impact of self-stigma and unique culture-specific factors to seeking help for GD for East Asian gamers, including less modelling of help-seeking, a lack of discussions around mental health and emotions, and collective shaming. Study 2 showed discrepant findings, where greater GD symptom severity was significantly associated with a lower intention to seek help from both professional and informal sources. Contrary to hypothesis, increased GD risk predicted a reduced intention to seek help in individuals with low self-stigma for both forms of support, whereas higher GD risk resulted in a greater intention to seek help among those with high self-stigma. Culture did not significantly moderate the association between GD risk and intention to seek help. Conclusions: Overall, these results suggest that self-stigma contributes to the association between GD symptom severity and the intention to seek help from both professional and informal sources. Culture plays a role in help-seeking, but this relationship presented mixed findings
Beyond Passing: Reimagining Sites Adjacent to Transit Lines
No full textThis thesis investigates how non-places around Gateway Station in Surrey, BC can be transformed into civic environments by reconfiguring movement and program.Transit lines often generate non-places—spaces of movement—shaped by efficiency and separated from civic life. This project explores how such spaces can be reimagined through continuity rather than interruption. By extending movement and allowing it to slow, overlap, and engage, transitional space becomes a threshold that supports presence and everyday life. The project looks at agora to understand how programs can be organized through historical and contemporary examples, such as arcades and courtyards, that show how movement shapes space. In doing so, it shifts the understanding from a purely functional definition toward grounded in programmatic interaction. Parking garages are studied as precedents where continuous movement defines form without fostering interaction. The thesis focuses on Gateway Station on the Expo Line in Surrey, BC—a growing transit hub with limited civic space—proposing the transformation of a transit-adjacent non-place into a civic environment responsive to urban rhythms and public needs
Development of Local Level Transportation Roadmap Model : A fuel Lifecycle Modelling Approach (FLICEM)
No full textThe growing urban vehicle traffic presents with an escalating demand for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There is a need to quantify, project and report current and future emissions to understand the trends and make informed policies to mitigate emissions. Global roadmap models are used to generate national level emission inventories and support policy development, but there are less initiatives taken in the local level modelling approach. This research proposes a new local level roadmap model that accounts for fuel life-cycle emissions at the provincial and municipal level. This research follows a modular based approach where each module processes inventories to capture the impacts of transportation activities in quantification of emissions. The transportation parameters are coupled with vehicle and fuel data to estimate the emissions. The tool calculates fuel life cycle emissions related to the production, transportation, transformation, and distribution of the fuel by vehicle type
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Training a Generative Adversarial Network Through Transfer Learning for the Purpose of Completing CT Images
No full textThe experiment was conducted via a three-step approach. Firstly, hyperparameter tuning was completed to broadly support the image completion GAN’s ability to complete greyscale images. Secondly, transfer learning experiments were conducted using three different pretraining datasets, with the addition of the in-house dataset as a baseline. These experiments were undertaken to refine the generator’s ability to complete CT images and test whether transfer learning enhances completion performance when fine-tuning on the in-house dataset. Lastly, layer freezing was investigated as a way to further refine CT image completion performance. This three-step iterative GAN-optimization process is novel within the context of CT image completion.This thesis develops an image completion neural network to mitigate computed tomography (CT) artifacts without the use of large clinical datasets or sinogram data. It aims to demonstrate that by using the developed technique, artifacts can be mitigated accurately by simply replacing a given artifact-marred region with context-appropriate anatomy. Such an approach could have implications for how artifacts are dealt within the context of radiotherapy treatment planning.
The first chapter contains the preface and thesis outline. Chapters two through four outline the background knowledge that is required to understand the motivation for, and methods of, this work. Chapter five contains a research manuscript intended to address the need for a method which can correct artifacts on CT images used for radiotherapy treatment planning more effectively than current standard of care methods. This study employs a generative adversarial network (GAN)-based image completion network and uses transfer learning techniques in its approach
The Impact of a Physical Activity After Acquired Brain Injury Program on Patient Cognition
No full textAcquired brain injuries (ABIs) describe injuries sustained to the brain after birth. ABI are a leading cause of disability and death in Canadians. Approximately, 70000 people in Nova Scotia are living with ABIs, but there is a lack of programs aimed at improving the physical fitness and cognitive function of these individuals through education and exercise programming. This study aimed to determine the impact of an 8-week physiotherapist led lifestyle intervention for people with an ABI. It was hypothesized that the intervention would improve cognitive health, physical activity levels and aerobic fitness. The program led to improved executive function and fitness but not physical activity in the intervention group, with no changes in the control group. The mixed findings may direct modifications or possible integration of this clinical program in other regions to facilitate better treatment of patients with an ABI in Nova Scotia
Investigating the Relationship Between Scientific Capital and Journal Fit
No full textAuthorship of journal articles provides an opportunity for scientists to share discoveries and build scientific capital. Previous research has shown disparities in publication based on personal attributes and citation inequality, but the additional hurdle of researchers with less scientific capital adapting their work to match journal scope is less explored. This thesis investigates the relationship between the past performance of researchers (publication output, and number of citations) and scientific domain with the fit of their articles in the publishing journal. 224 journals were selected and publications between 2019-2023 were analyzed to determine journal scope and publication fit using cosine similarity scores. A linear regression analysis showed a statistically significant inverse relationship between the number of publications of authors, publishing in arts & humanities, and publication fit (r2 = 0.519, p < 0.005). Further research is needed to determine what additional factors may influence publication fit and journal scope
Designing for Belonging: Cultural Sustainability as a Framework for Rethinking North American Suburbia
No full textSuburban tract housing in North America was built on the promise of the “American Dream,” yet its rigid, standardized forms continue to exclude the cultural practices and spatial needs of immigrant communities. This thesis reimagines the suburban home through the lens of transnational domesticity, asking: What if housing could adapt to the rituals, rhythms, and relationships of those who live across cultures?
Focusing on the Indian diaspora in Canada, the research investigates how immigrant families actively reshape their homes—through spatial layering, generational adaptations, and hybrid uses that reflect cultural continuity. Drawing from theories of cultural sustainability, transnational identity, and spatial production, it highlights these transformations not as
informal exceptions, but as vital design knowledge.
In response, the project proposes a flexible housing model built from a “kit of parts”—a system that supports growth, co-authorship, and cultural belonging. It calls for a new
suburban paradigm—one that sees home as a living framework, not a finished product
On Ornstein-Uhlenbeck State Space Models
No full textThis dissertation develops and applies the Ornstein--Uhlenbeck state space model (OUSSM) for analyzing noisy, irregularly sampled, and multi-dimensional time-series data, with a particular focus on human microbiome dynamics.
We first introduce the OUSSM framework to account for measurement errors in microbiome data, providing more reliable estimation of mean reversion rates and robust profile likelihood confidence intervals. A likelihood-based testing procedure is proposed to compare microbial dynamics between datasets, for example before and after periods of disruption. These methods are validated through simulations and applied to microbiome datasets.
We then investigate the optimal sampling scheme for the OUSSM. Theoretical results and extensive simulations reveal that estimation accuracy exhibits a U-shaped dependence on the sampling interval, with moderate gaps yielding the most efficient inference. Repeated measurements are shown to substantially improve estimation. Allocating 10\%--20\% of the samples to repeated samples at already-sampled time points achieved the most accurate estimation of mean-reversion rate across a range of simulations. The choice of which time points should be repeatedly sampled made very little difference to the estimation.
Finally, we extend the OUSSM framework to the multi-dimensional setting by developing a factor OUSSM, addressing identifiability challenges via parameter constraints and proposing estimation procedures based on the Kalman filter. Simulation studies demonstrate the model's ability to recover latent dynamics under a range of scenarios, while real-data applications illustrate how multidimensional interactions among microbial genera can be captured more effectively than with traditional one-dimensional approaches.
Together, these contributions establish a comprehensive methodological framework for modeling, inference, and sampling design in the OU process with measurement error. The results not only improve the statistical characterization of microbial temporal dynamics but also extend broadly to applications in ecology, finance, and beyond