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24-Hour movement index : exploring the acceptability among parents
No full textBackground: The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (24HMG) for Children and Youth were introduced in 2016 offering recommendations on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), light physical activity (LPA), sedentary behaviour (SB), and sleep in a typical 24-hour period to achieve optimal health outcomes. However, a lack of awareness and knowledge about the guidelines among children and parents is a concerning issue and may contribute to the low guideline adherence of Canadian children. A “Movement Index” app is planned to help parents track their children’s movement behaviours through manual data entry and/or a wearable device. The Index would also demonstrate to parents how the combination of their children’s movement behaviours, such as a change in time reallocation, may be associated with different health outcomes. Using the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA), this study explores the following objectives: 1) whether the Movement Index is acceptable to parents, 2) what refinements should be made to improve the Movement Index, and 3) are there differences in perceptions of acceptability between mothers and fathers. Methods: Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted over Zoom with 22 parents of children 5-11 from across Canada. Interview data was analyzed with thematic analysis using a constant comparative method. Results: Results suggest that the Movement Index is acceptable on three constructs (perceived effectiveness, intervention coherence, social acceptability), mostly acceptable on two (affective attitude, ethicality), and mixed acceptability for the remaining three (burden, opportunity cost, self-efficacy). Discussion: On balance, the Movement Index was found to be acceptable, and the project should proceed with several caveats that need to be addressed regarding accessibility and ethical concerns. The TFA was an effective framework for examining acceptability in the Movement Index, although critical reflections included overlapping constructs and lack of criteria for making a final judgement on acceptability. Future work is required to develop and pilot the Movement Index before further examining its acceptability and usability.Education, Faculty ofKinesiology, School ofGraduat
Preservice early childhood educator perspectives of educator relations with primary caregivers : a survey study
No full textThere is little research about the functional creation and maintenance of effective family and childcare relationships and less about PSECE perspectives on educator relations with primary caregivers. Little is known about what PSECE think about their future work with primary caregivers and how they come to have these perspectives, which may eventually be the basis for their practice with primary caregivers. In light of this context, this exploratory study utilized a survey to gather the views of public post-secondary Preservice Early Childhood Education students (PSECEs) (N=111) in Vancouver, B.C., concerning their perspectives on educator relations with primary caregivers. An analysis of the survey data using SPSS statistical software showed that most participants were born outside Canada. The participants' perspectives on educator relations with primary caregivers mostly aligned with traditional educator-focused interactions. The participants indicated that the Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) they learned in their Early Childhood Education (ECE) coursework significantly influenced their perspectives on educator relationships with primary caregivers. Understanding these perspectives contributes to refining a curriculum that supports PSECEs in developing the attitudes and skills necessary to create and maintain supportive relationships with primary caregivers, fostering optimal outcomes for children in childcare settings.Education, Faculty ofGraduat
Ice nucleation ability of organic and inorganic substances : the effects of coatings and new methodologies for studying their abundance in the atmosphere
No full textThe full abstract for this thesis is available in the body of the thesis, and will be available when the embargo expires.Science, Faculty ofChemistry, Department ofGraduat
A research framework to assess the contribution of the mangrove ecosystem to the well-being of coastal communities in Africa
No full textMangroves occur in tropical and temperate tidal areas and are characterized as productive and dynamic. Africa holds 20% of the total global mangroves, with 74% along the western coast and 26% towards the eastern shore. The African continent has coastal zones dependent on providing mangrove ecosystems as they offer several services that benefit livelihoods, food security, and the environment. In West Africa, Nypa fruticans, an invasive Southeast Asian species, has become a threat in countries like Nigeria. It competes with native mangrove species and impacts biodiversity, altering the structure and function of local ecosystems. This systematic review utilizes the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology in its main scope of reviewing literature that highlights the social, economic, and environmental significance of mangroves to the coastal communities of Africa. The review involved four stages: Data Acquisition, Data Screening, Data extraction, and Data Analysis. Alongside traditional literature sources, relevant publications were obtained from Google Scholar, Web of Science, Elsevier Scopus and PubMed Central. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were considered in this systematic review. 157 articles were selected to analyze and interpret themes developed using NVIVO software. The results point to a high level of contribution to mangrove ecosystems, which is a multi-layered framework. The first comprises coastal communities, mangroves and environmental impacts. The effects addressed in ecological terms (Layer 1) include climate change and human activities in Layer 2, which directly threaten the health of mangroves, leading to sea level rise and pollution that affects the ecosystem and human communities alike. Health benefits, socio-economic benefits and security, livelihoods, and cultural values were critical subjects in Layer 2 socio-economic measures. Other, less frequently mentioned, but to a lesser extent, determinants (Layer 3) comprised a range of issues: industrial waste, urban expansion, and chemical run-off. This review explores the fact that managing mangroves sustainably is necessary for maintaining the resilience and health of coastal communities in Africa.Forestry, Faculty ofGraduat
Search for diphoton resonances in the 66 to 110 GeV mass range using pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
No full textAbstract A search is performed for light, spin-0 bosons decaying into two photons in the 66 to 110 GeV mass range, using 140 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV produced by the Large Hadron Collider and collected by the ATLAS detector. Multivariate analysis techniques are used to define event categories that improve the sensitivity to new resonances beyond the Standard Model. A model-independent search for a generic spin-0 particle and a model-dependent search for an additional low-mass Higgs boson are performed in the diphoton invariant mass spectrum. No significant excess is observed in either search. Mass-dependent upper limits at the 95% confidence level are set in the model-independent scenario on the fiducial cross-section times branching ratio into two photons in the range of 8 fb to 53 fb. Similarly, in the model-dependent scenario upper limits are set on the total cross-section times branching ratio into two photons as a function of the Higgs boson mass in the range of 19 fb to 102 fb.Science, Faculty ofTRIUMFNon UBCPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofReviewedFacultyResearche
Exploring the Nuclear Chart via Precision Mass Spectrometry with the TITAN MR-TOF MS
No full textIsotopes at the limits of nuclear existence are of great interest for their critical role in nuclear astrophysical reactions and their exotic structure. Experimentally, exotic nuclides are challenging to address due to their low production cross-sections, overwhelming amounts of contamination, and lifetimes of typically less than a second. To this end, a Multiple-Reflection Time-of-Flight mass spectrometer at the TITAN-TRIUMF facility was built to determine atomic masses. This device is the preferred tool to work with exotic nuclides due to its ability to resolve the species of interest from contamination and short measurement cycle times, enabling mass measurements of isotopes with millisecond half-lives. With a relative precision of the order 10⁻⁷, we demonstrate why the TITAN MR-TOF MS is the tool of choice for precision mass surveys for nuclear structure and astrophysics. The capabilities of the device are showcased in this work, including new mass measurements of short-lived tin isotopes (¹⁰⁴⁻¹⁰⁷Sn) approaching the proton dripline as well as ⁸⁹Zr, ⁹⁰Y, and ⁹¹Y. The last three illustrate how the broadband surveys of MR-TOF MS reach beyond the species of immediate interest.Science, Faculty ofTRIUMFNon UBCPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofReviewedFacultyResearche
Identifying and validating the genetic predictors of morphine-related harm and ineffectiveness in children
No full textThe full abstract for this thesis is available in the body of the thesis, and will be available when the embargo expires.Medicine, Faculty ofAnesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Department ofGraduat
Mapping the origins of the human moral sense
No full textResearch suggests that the foundations for our sense of morality might be found in infancy. For instance, preverbal infants demonstrate behaviours which appear to be based on rudimentary moral principles - they evaluate others’ prosocial/antisocial actions, demonstrate an expectation for fair resource allocation, and exhibit concern for others’ distress. The purpose of the present research was to examine the moral relevance of these behaviours by examining concurrent and longitudinal associations among them. Additionally, we explored whether these behaviours are the product of social or domain-general processes, by assessing their relationship with a number of classic social and general cognitive measures. Participants were drawn from a longitudinal project which followed infants’ development from birth to age three (target N = 500). Studies were administered during the first 5 visits of the project (between birth and 12 months old), with one additional online study administered at 21 months old. We did not find any of the anticipated relationships among proposed moral behaviours, which might suggest that they are not the product of a coherent moral sense. However, we also did not find any associations with our social or domain-general variables, leaving questions about the nature of infants’ sociomoral behaviours largely unanswered. Importantly, we were also not able to replicate the majority of classic studies we administered across visits, which might reflect the susceptibility of infants’ responses to situational variables. Features of our testing sessions and the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic may have contributed to null-findings and attenuated effects that emerged in this research project.Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofGraduat
Search for a light charged Higgs boson in t → H±b decays, with H± → cs, in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
No full textA search for a light charged Higgs boson produced in decays of the top quark, t → H±b with H± → cs,
is presented. This search targets the production of top-quark
pairs tt
¯ → WbH±b, with W → ν ( = e, μ), resulting in a lepton-plus-jets final state characterised by an isolated electron or muon and at least four jets. The search
exploits b-quark and c-quark identification techniques as well
as multivariate methods to suppress the dominant tt
¯ background. The data analysed correspond to 140 fb−1 of pp
collisions at √s = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC between 2015 and 2018. Observed (expected)
95% confidence-level upper limits on the branching fraction
B(t → H±b), assuming B(t → W b) + B(t → H±(→
cs)b) = 1.0, are set between 0.066% (0.077%) and 3.6%
(2.3%) for a charged Higgs boson with a mass between 60
and 168 GeV.Science, Faculty ofTRIUMFNon UBCPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofReviewedFacultyResearche