MacEwan Open Journals (MacEwan University)
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Manet or Monet - Does Knowing the Difference Matter? An Examination of Cultural Capital in Popular Discourse
No full textConsumer cultures are fueled by the anxiety of modern shoppers who purchase goods that best facilitate distinction from others. In an endless barrage of brands, all promising the potential of a "better self," how does one know which brand to choose? Advertisers are expert at manufacturing desire by creating symbolic links between their products and feelings of self-worth, particularly regarding true or subjectively perceived improvements in social status. This presentation reports secondary research of sources engaging Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of taste as an indicator of class and cultural capital as a means of social mobility. Evidence supporting the theory shows that individuals must possess cultural capital, in the form of academic or social knowledge, to identify cultural worth across different contexts. However, limitations to the real-world or current applicability of cultural capital include the failure of the concept to account for “low culture” or non-academic contexts. The presentation examines how in “high culture” contexts, the culturally savvy use the concept to establish class distinctions, whereas in low culture contexts, cultural capital as theorized by Bourdieu does little to merit one’s worth. Based on this analysis, I will offer a new look at the shifting currents of social media and how it can be used to convert the “subcultural capital” of grassroots campaigns into cultural capital by forcing academic concepts into news commentary, mainstream debate, and thus, popular consciousness.
Discipline: Communication
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Iain MacPherso
Spatial Navigation in Corn Snakes
No full textResearch has shown that a variety of organisms encode the geometry of their environment to re-establish orientation (i.e., reorientation). This has been shown in species ranging from rats to bees, and has been shown to be an automatic process. This automatic process of encoding geometry has been taken as evidence for a geometric module in the brain of these species. However, it is currently not known whether reptiles also use geometry to reorient. This study will investigate the use of geometric cues for reorientation in a corn snake. The snake will be trained to locate a goal in a corner of a rectangular arena. At each corner, a unique landmark will be available. Once the snake has learned to locate the target corner, it will attempt to relocate the corner in the absence of the landmarks. If the snake has encoded the geometry of the arena during training, it should be able to locate the goal, and will make rotational errors (i.e., mistaking the diagonally opposite corner for the correct corner). This rotational error would provide evidence that the snake has encoded the geometry even though it was trained to rely on the landmarks during training. This would provide support for the existence of a geometric module in the snake’s brain, and potentially in the general reptilian brain as well
Discipline: Biological Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jean-Francois Nanko
Translating Spanish Through Different Formats
No full textTranslating a Spanish poem through different ways and format, discuss the differences and when to use the right form
Discipline: International Business
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Erin Cowling
 
Characterization of Engineered Protein Switches Using Intramolecular Disulfide Bridges
No full textProtein engineering is the process of developing proteins that can perform functions that often are novel and do not occur in nature. Development of proteins with new properties is critical for a wide range of biotechnology applications including new metabolic pathways, biosensors, and molecular scaffolds. Engineered proteins are frequently used in the food industry, medicine, nanobiotechnology, and environmental applications. One of the limits of protein engineering is the lack of ability to rationally design molecular switches. Here we report on the development of a molecular switch which utilizes cysteine disulfide bridges.
Our model system for the development of a designer molecular switch is the translation elongation factor (EF) G. EF-G stimulates translocation of tRNA through the ribosome, a process that requires a conformational change in EF-G. We have developed and implemented a Molecular Dynamics simulation pipeline to design 3 EF-G variants (G163C-T650C, P121C-K675C, and T125C-S679C) with disulfide bridges that limit the conformational changes of EF-G to specific functional states. To assess correct folding of these conformationally restricted EF-G variants, we have used circular dichroism and determined key enzymatic properties such as nucleotide binding and GTP hydrolysis rates for these EF-G variants. The reported data validates the ability of our Molecular Dynamics pipeline to rationally design novel molecular switches.
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Shining a Light on The Dark Side of Humanity: An Exploration of Edmonton’s Homicides Using Spatial Statistics
No full textPrior to 2011, Edmonton had never experienced 40 homicides in a single year. Since then, there have been three separate years to experience 40 or more murders. With this knowledge, it seems prudent to explore any relationships that may exist regarding homicide events. While there has been research done into what types of people are involved in such events, little research can be found on spatial trends associated with homicide locations. Using spatial statistics, it is our goal to explore the possible existence of a spatial relationship between homicide events. More specifically, point pattern analysis will be used to investigate possible clustering of events and areal analysis will be used to check for spatial autocorrelation. We will follow up these analyses by building linear models and testing the residuals for spatial autocorrelation
Source Detection Technique for Identifying Very Faint X-Ray Transients
No full textVery faint X-ray transients (VFXTs) are a rare type of X-ray binary with a distinctly low luminosity of Lx<106 erg/s. Accurate identification of VFXTs from typical X-ray surveys is challenging due to their minimal luminosity and low likelihood of occurrence. The Swift X-ray Telescope Survey of the Galactic Bulge aims to scan a large area of the sky in search of VFXTs while detecting shallow photon data. The faint nature of VFXTs makes them difficult to differentiate from random astrophysical background events or noise, thus, VFXTs are more susceptible to mis-identification. This research project involved developing a method for accurate source identification given limited photon data using Poisson statistics to differentiate between source and background photons. A Python 3 code was developed for which Swift Xray or simulated data is input, and the locations of detected astrophysical sources is returned. It is predicted that this source detection technique will allow for the accurate identification of VFXTs from shallow Swift Galactic Bulge Survey data, and can be extended for use in future surveys of a similar nature.
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Synthesis and Applications of Iron Nanoparticles Toward Environmental Remediation
No full textThe applications of iron nanoparticles are numerous, ranging from drug delivery to wastewater treatment. We followed a number of different methods for synthesizing magnetic and nonmagnetic iron nanoparticles. A couple of the nanoparticles were characterized using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Furthermore, we tested the different nanoparticles using a Fenton-like system, through which it was determined that iron nanoparticles were the most effective, as catalysts, when prepared using sodium borohydride. The degradation of Methylene Blue, using the sodium borohydride synthesized iron nanoparticles, was monitored via Ultraviolet-Visible (UV) spectroscopy, as well as Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC).
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Metabolomic Analysis of Prenatal Maternal Stress Effects on Offspring as a Result of the 2011 Queensland Flood
No full textINTRODUCTION: It is widely acknowledged that the health outcomes of offspring are directly linked to the health of their mother during pregnancy. The impacts of pre-natal maternal stress (PNMS) can cascade as development of the offspring continues, and are linked to negative health outcomes.
OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to determine the metabolomic differences in offspring who were exposed in utero to the 2011 Queensland Flood in relation to the mother’s level of subjective distress and objective hardship.
METHODS: Ninety urine samples were obtained from 51 male and 39 female 4-year-old offspring. Metabolomic profiles were acquired using a 700 MHz Bruker Avance III HD NMR spectrometer and subsequently binned. Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) was used to identify differences in high vs. low composite subjective distress and high vs. low objective hardship in metabolic profiles, in both male and female groups. Metabolites leading to significant group separation were identified using both Variable Importance Analysis based on random Variable Combination (VIAVC) and a Mann-Whitney U test. Metabolanalyst software was used for metabolite sets enrichment analysis of altered metabolites, and to identify potential biochemical pathways and disease pathologies in the offspring.
RESULTS: Group separation was observed between high and low levels of both objective hardship and composite subjective distress groups, in both males and females. Several metabolites were detected as being either up- or down-regulated, thus contributing to the observed separation, including creatinine and formate.
CONCLUSIONS: The metabolites identified as significantly altered have been associated with several negative health outcomes. Creatinine down- regulation has been associated with dysfunction in Krebs cycle thus potentially disturbing energy metabolism and contributing to psychiatric illness. Formate up-regulation has been linked to oxidative stress and correlated to metabolic dysfunction in genes relating to neurodegenerative diseases. Understanding the biological pathways affected by exposure to PNMS allows for an improved approach to patient treatment.
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I hear, therefore I perceive: Effects of speech accent on perception of physicians
No full textPeople sometimes assume that a person who speaks with a foreign accent possesses negative traits and personality characteristics. The purpose of this study is to test if doctors who speak with a foreign accent are perceived as less competent than doctors who speak with a standard accent. We asked both Canadian and Chinese Canadian undergraduates to rate the competence of a doctor with either a standard Canadian accent or a Chinese accent. The doctor was delivering either good or bad news about the patient’s cholesterol levels or cancer. Previous research has shown that when reminded of death, participants favour in-group members (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). We therefore predicted that the Chinese-accented doctor is more likely to be judged positively by Chinese Canadian participants when given bad news about cancer. Similarly, the standard-accented doctor is more likely to be favourably perceived by Canadian participants in the same condition. The initial results suggest that, as predicted, the accent affects participants’ judgments of the doctors’ competence.
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Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Does the Emotion Dysregulation Model Predict Symptoms Above the Metacognitive Model?
No full textIndividuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) experience excessive anxiety and uncontrollable worry lasting at least six months, with their worry not limited to a single type or context. The Metacognitive Model (MCM) is a well-established framework of GAD, emphasizing negative beliefs about worry (NB). Recently, the Emotion Dysregulation Model (EDM) of GAD was proposed, focusing on issues with understanding, expressing, and managing emotions. However, there is a lack of research examining the utility of the EDM by comparing it to more established models, such as the MCM. This study extends the current literature by examining whether the EDM helps explain GAD symptoms when compared to the MCM. Self-report measures of worry, GAD symptoms, the EDM, and the MCM were administered to a non-clinical university sample (N = 400). The following was hypothesized: GAD symptoms and worry would positively correlate with emotion dysregulation; GAD symptoms and worry would positively correlate with NB; and emotion dysregulation would predict GAD symptoms independently of NB. Bivariate correlations were conducted to determine whether measures of the MCM and EDM correlated with GAD and worry. Regression analyses tested which measures uniquely predicted GAD and worry. Findings demonstrated that NB and various components of the EDM correlate with GAD and worry. Regression analyses found that when controlling for NB, emotional expressivity (EE) and fear of emotions predicted GAD, while EE and difficulty regulating emotions predicted worry. Findings have implications for GAD treatment, encouraging an approach including emotion psychoeducation and development of effective emotional regulation strategies.
Discipline: Psychology (Honours)
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Alexander Penne