MacEwan Open Journals (MacEwan University)
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nau—sea: artist book
No full textThis research project is the creation of an artist book based on collaboration between the primary artists and research into feminist theory and design. Deconstruction is a dominant theme in the project: we used this to break down normative rules of grammar, structure, narrative, and design to express the fragmented personal and political narratives present in the work associated with gender and class. We reflected on the writings of Joshua Gamson and Steven Epstein to incorporate queer theory and deconstructionist theory in our research: “The term queer itself resists a clear and explicit definition, so also queer politics are deconstructionist politics “marked by a resistance to being labeled, a suspicion of constraining sexual categories, and a greater appreciation for the fluidity of sexual expression.” (Epstein, 1996, p. 154)”.“Queer can be anti-assimilationist, provocative and includes various sexual minorities and includes various shades of gender expressions and identities (Epstein, 1996, pp. 152-153; Gamson, 1996, p. 396). Moreover they are intersectional – they not only deal with questions of sexuality and “sex”, it also deals with “race” and “class” as axes of power hierarchies and the fact that we all have multiple belongings within this categories (Gamson, 1996)”. The book is an articulation of our own personal and political narratives. We produced content for one another, in a responsive process of writing and photography between each other for several months. The result of this relationship was a multi-layered narrative: vulnerability, mental health, addiction, violence, loss, anxiety, love, community, self-awareness.
Discipline: Design Studies
Faculty Mentor: Wayne Willia
Traversing Threshold in Child and Youth Care Education: A Qualitative Inquiry into the Meaning-Making Experience of Student Participants in an International Study Tour
No full textThis qualitative, relational-centred inquiry explores the learning experiences of a group of 20 Child and Youth Care (CYC) students who completed a 12-day international study tour designed to introduce CYC students to Irish and Scottish history, culture, and social care systems through experiential place-based learning and a combination of formal and informal relational pedagogies. The data analysis revealed thirteen thematic categories organized the five guiding research question.
Discipline: Child and Youth Care
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Gerard Bellefeuill
From Harlequin Romance to 50 Shades of Grey: Gender and sexual stereotypes in evaluations of consent
No full textAdvocacy for unequivocal and enthusiastic sexual consent has increased on university campuses in North America. Central to this movement includes, increasing awareness of consent and individual responsibilities. Consent-related exchanges are likely prone to the same sources of automatic and unconscious bias that influence other acts of social communication or evaluation. Understanding cognitive bias in perceptions, decisions, and actions related to consent becomes a necessary first step in mitigating its influence. Stereotypic beliefs shape our understanding of others’ dispositions and behaviours. Even when trying to not be biased, we unconsciously use stereotypes to interpret others’ behaviour and determine how we feel about them. In North America, sexual norms and gender stereotypes portray men as active pursuers and women as sexual gatekeepers. The current project will examine how gender stereotypes within sexual typical, and atypical encounter contexts influence our perceptions of consent and evaluations of those involved. Participants will read passages depicting sexual interactions in a context similar to a Harlequin Romance, or the 50 Shades of Grey novel. Both stories will be modified to create a male and female pursuer version. After reading the passage, participants will interpret the consensual nature of the encounter and their evaluations of the parties involved. We expect the Harlequin contexts and the male pursuer scenarios to be evaluated more positively regarding consent and character evaluation due to their more stereotypical nature. Further, females may be more harshly evaluated when both the story context and behavioural role is counter-stereotypical.
Discipline: Psychology Honours
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Aimee Sky
Rejecting People-First Language: Predictors and Causes of the Use of Noun-Based Mental Disorder Labels
No full textPsychiatric noun labels such as ‘schizophrenic’ carry with them a host of negative beliefs, attitudes and assumptions, but no research to date has demonstrated a causal link between negative portrayals of a person with mental illness and the tendency to describe such an individual with a noun. The current research investigated (1) whether depicted violence increases the use of noun labels to describe an individual with a psychological disorder, and (2) whether dehumanization processes and/or perceived threat of the target person mediate this relationship. University undergraduates (N = 313) read two mock newspaper stories in counterbalanced order: one depicting a man with schizophrenia committing a nonviolent crime and one depicting a man with schizophrenia committing a highly violent crime. Participants completed measures of dehumanization and perceived threat in relation to the target individual in each scenario. Respondents were then tasked with selecting seven headlines for each of the two news stories, in each case choosing between headlines employing either a noun label (e.g., Schizophrenic Snaps) or a possessive label (e.g., Person with Schizophrenia Snaps). As predicted, violent depictions of a person with schizophrenia increased the use of noun label headlines, and dehumanization processes were found to mediate this relationship. Several implications of these findings are discussed.
Discipline: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Andrew Howel
The Relationship Between Music Perception and Reading Skills in Children
No full textResearch suggests that music perception and reading skills rely on some of the same underlying mechanisms, such as good auditory perception and working memory. However, it is unclear whether associations between music perception skills and reading skills remain after controlling for potential confounds (e.g., general intelligence), and whether they are limited to certain aspects of music perception (e.g., beat perception) or extend more generally to other aspects (e.g., pitch perception). As such, we plan to examine the specificity of the association between music perception skills and reading abilities in school-aged children. Children will complete 1) the Beat Alignment Test, which examines the ability to detect whether a superimposed beat is aligned with the beat of a musical excerpt, 2) the Profile of Music Perception Skills, which examines the ability to decipher if two musical excerpts are the same or different, 3) the Wide Range Achievement Test, which examines word decoding, sentence comprehension, and spelling abilities, and 4) the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test, which measures receptive vocabulary and provides an estimate of IQ. We predict that performance on the music tasks will correlate with performance on the reading tasks, such as word decoding, even after controlling for receptive vocabulary. This research may provide further evidence for the importance of musical perception in reading abilities. Training music perception skills could be beneficial for young children beginning to read, as well as children with reading disabilities.
Discipline: Psychology Honours
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kathleen Corrigal
The Power of Language: Refugee Settlement in Canada
No full textThe purpose for participating in the project Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Global Refugee Crisis was to get a better understanding of why there is a Global Refugee Crisis, how welcoming the refugees might impact our intercultural practice as future Social Workers. Based on the educational forums and the online postings discussion we learned that language as part of the Refugees’ difficult journey continue to represent some barriers when landing in Canada. Our presentation is therefore exploring what we called the power of language – what power of language are we using to welcome the refugees? There is a universal language we all understand which is being gracious, kind and welcoming. However, there is also a language of fear, hatred and misunderstanding. The power of language focuses on how power imbalance in society is realized through language, specifically on the role of language in producing and maintaining oppressive and unequal relationships. We acknowledge in our poster the different languages already present in Canada and those that refugees are bringing to show that the language culture in the everyday life experiences for many of these refugees in Canada go beyond the bilingualism culture. From a micro level, we do believe that community connection can help newcomers establish social networks. Partnerships, promotions and planning sessions allow the community connections and bring diverse organizations together to welcome refugees in their local community, to overcome the hassles of refugees. And not but the last our acceptance that the languages that Refugees are bringing with them might break many of the barriers, we represented in our second poster, to make place for conviviality.
Discipline: Social Work
Faculty mentor: Dr. Valerie Ouedraog
The Algol Cam: Applied Astronomy Using DSLR Cameras
No full textWith the refinement in optical technology as of the past few decades, commercial grade cameras have taken a step forward in capabilities. This advancement is the basis for the Algol Cam, a makeshift telescope prototype with a 15 x 10 field of view and the capability to see stars down to 15th magnitude. Combined with Phidgets motors and software programs with functions such as star field analysis and data reduction, the telescope can run surveys for extended periods of time, download photos to a database and compress the data into light curves all automatically. The implications of this project range from numerous astronomy projects to educational and class-based learning tools.
*Indicates faculty mento
Examining the Antimicrobial Activity of Plant Extracts used in Traditional Medicine
No full textWith the increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance, the need for novel antimicrobials is high. In Africa, local populations use native plant extracts to treat infection; however, whether or not they are antimicrobial remains largely unknown. If these plant extracts demonstrate antimicrobial activity they may prove useful in the fight against antibiotic resistance. The purpose of this project was to develop a standard method to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of extracts from eleven plant species used in traditional medicine, and to examine if these extracts inhibit growth of four different bacterial species representing various pathogen groups.
Using a modified disk diffusion assay, increasing volumes of plant extracts, antibiotic solutions, or control solutions were added to filter paper disks. These disks were then placed onto agar plates inoculated with test bacteria. The zones of inhibition were measured and additional visual growth effects were recorded.
Seven of the eleven extracts produced zones of inhibition against at least one bacterial species. This effect was dose-dependent. Of the four bacterial species tested, E. coli, B. subtilis and S. epidermidis had their growth inhibited by at least one extract. Interestingly, ten of the extracts had additional bio-activity that resulted in visible morphological changes in the bacteria, indicating these extracts affect growth and gene expression. This effect was produced in all four bacterial species by at least one extract. This investigation was essential in characterizing the extracts’ biological properties so they may be studied further and potentially used in industrial or medical applications.
*Indicates faculty mento
Synthesis and Characterization of Schiff Base Ligands Derived from Amino Acids
No full textSchiff base ligands and their metal complexes have been shown to exhibit important biological activities in biological systems and in the pharmaceutical industry (anti-tumor, anti-cancer, anti-malaria, anti-diabetic, etc). Significant research in this area is ongoing and a lot of complexes have been synthesized with promising biological and/or catalytic activities [1-4]. This project is the preliminary step to synthesizing metal complexes with Schiff Base ligands derived from amino acids for use in biological systems and/or catalysis. In this project, we have synthesized Schiff Base ligands from salicylaldehyde, benzaldehyde, and 4-dimethylnitrobenzaldehyde, with the following amino acids: alanine, histidine, leucine, valine, phenylalanine, and serine. The general names of the ligands are N-salicylidene, N-benzalidene, and N-dimethylnitrobenzalidene amino acids, respectively. Characterization of the ligands have been done using the following techniques; UV-visible spectroscopy, 1H NMR spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, melting/decomposition point, and solubility tests. The results will be presented in the poster.
References:
H. L. Singh and J. Singh, Int. J. of Inorg. Chem., 2013, (vol 2013), pp1-10
M. Alias, H. Kassum and C. Shakir, JAAUBAS, 2014, (vol. 15), pp28-34
Rathore et al., Eur. J. Chem. 2010, pp. S566–S572 7(S1)
E. Yousif et al., Arabian, J. Chem., 2013, pp1-5
*Indicates faculty mentor
Winter Habitat Selection by Muskrats in Southern Boreal Wetlands
No full textMuskrats (Ondatra zibethicus), as a semi-aquatic furbearer, are highly dependent on water levels and adjacent food resources to help them survive northern winters. In some areas, muskrats also act as an indicator species for monitoring changes in wetland ecosystems, such as in the deltas of the Mackenzie, Peace, and Athabasca rivers where both muskrat numbers and water levels have declined. To determine which environmental factors are most influential for winter habitat selection by muskrats, we applied a linear mixed-model approach to analyze the relationship among the number of muskrat lodges and push-ups relative to various abiotic (e.g., water depth, degree of shoreline development, pond size) and biotic factors (beaver presence, vegetation characteristics). Our study was restricted to pothole wetlands in Alberta’s southern mixed-wood boreal forest. We used a geographic information system to assess lodge location and push-up distribution relative to the most important environmental variables arising from our models. Our research provides greater insight into a species that plays an important role as both predator and prey within wetland ecosystems.
*Indicates faculty mentor