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Intimacy: Digital Illustration
No full textIntimacy - a digital illustration by Mackenzie Smith. 
Maple Transactions−The Early Years
No full textA vision statement for Maple Transactions giving our goals and plans for the first few years
Lier le sentiment d’auto-efficacité à la maîtrise de l’information en santé à l’utilisation de technologies de l’information et à l’état de santé : Une étude à grande échelle d’étudiants chinois
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to relate individuals’ health information literacy (HIL) self-efficacy to their information technology (IT) use and health status. Using a large-scale field survey with 6,160 valid respondents from undergraduates in a Chinese university, we found that individuals’ HIL self-efficacy was significantly related to some socio-demographics and lifestyle features, IT use, and health status. Meanwhile, some socio-demographics and lifestyle features and health status help identify low HIL self-efficacy individuals, while moderate daily IT use may improve HIL self-efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations and future work, are also discussed.
L’objectif de cet article est de lier le sentiment d’auto-efficacité à la maîtrise de l’information en santé à l’utilisation de technologies et de l’information (TI) et à l’état de santé. En se basant sur une enquête sur le terrain auprès de 6 160 étudiants d’une université chinoise, nous avons constaté que le sentiment d’auto-efficacité à la maîtrise de l’information en santé était lié de manière significative à certaines caractéristiques sociodémographiques et relatives au mode de vie, à l’utilisation de TI et à l’état de santé. Certaines de ces caractéristiques ainsi que l’état de santé permettent d’identifier un faible sentiment d’auto-efficacité en maîtrise de l’information en santé chez certains individus, tandis qu’une utilisation quotidienne modérée des TI peut l’améliorer. Les conséquences théoriques et pratiques, de même que les limites et les travaux futurs, sont aussi abordés
Planning Shelter Service Spaces and Structures for Resilience: A Spatial Analysis of Women’s Shelters During COVID-19
No full textObjective: Globally, domestic violence against women increased in severity over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shelters supporting women experiencing temporary homelessness due to violence had to make major changes in service delivery to accommodate pandemic protocols, including how many families could stay in shelter, where they were allowed to reside, and how they were, and were not, able to interact with shelter staff and the outside world. The present study used a novel approach to spatial analysis to understand how pandemic protocols affected shelter space use. Method: Floor plans and written pandemic protocols were submitted by 15 women’s shelters in Ontario, Canada. Each pandemic protocol was analyzed and mapped onto its respective floor plans to determine how much space was lost under different modes of operation: normal (pre-pandemic), physical distancing (using pandemic protocols), and quarantine (using pandemic protocols during an outbreak). Three types of shelter space were analyzed to understand what types of spaces shelters were losing: Primary (bedrooms, bathrooms, and laundry areas), Secondary (community areas and staff offices), and Tertiary (hallways and storage). Findings: All 15 shelters lost space, with an average of 27% of net area lost overall (range 7%-56%). Within the three types of space, 18% of Primary, 48% of Secondary, and <1% of Tertiary space was lost. Key factors influencing space loss were the type of protocol used and the existing layout of the shelter space. Conclusions: Recommendations for shelter space planning in the context of rapidly evolving public health requirements are provided
Exploring the use of Hotels as Alternative Housing by Domestic Violence Shelters During COVID-19
No full textDomestic violence shelters present a unique context within the congregate living sector in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shelters supporting women during the pandemic had to change service delivery models to include housing women in hotels to adhere to government restrictions and ensure women, and their children, were not homeless. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of hotel use as alternative housing for women experiencing domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada. We used interpretive description methodology, including in-depth interviews with 8 women using shelter services, 26 shelter workers and 5 focus groups with 24 executive directors of women’s shelters and other organizations who serve women who have experienced domestic violence. We identified and explored three main tensions in housing women at hotels compared to shelters: 1) autonomy/independence versus support, 2) a better option, the only option, and/or a safety concern, and 3) adequacy of hotels as housing. Drawbacks and benefits of the use of hotels as housing for women in the context of domestic violence are explored and recommendations are highlighted
Identifying Challenges and Solutions to Providing Diabetes Care for Those Experiencing Homelessness
No full textIntroduction: Health care providers face a multitude of challenges in providing care to patients with diabetes who are experiencing homelessness. Considering the unique circumstance faced by this population, mainstream services must be adapted and tailored to meet patients’ needs. The objective of this study was to explore both the barriers faced by providers and programs in offering comprehensive diabetes care to these patients, and their suggested areas for improvement.
Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with providers who care for patients who have diabetes and/or who experience homelessness. Participants included primary care providers, specialist physicians, dietitians, shelter staff, outreach workers, and diabetes educators in five Canadian centres (n=96). Responses were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis.
Results: Barriers most frequently cited by providers were a lack of resources for staff. Other challenges included policy barriers (restrictions on billing codes, care professionals’ scope of practice, and the structure of financial support for this population), duplication of services, and alternative priorities of care. Participants identified several strategies to improve care, which targeted the following spheres: location of service provision and coordination of care, policy changes, and extending funding and resources for staff, such as augmented funding to hire allied health professionals in outpatient settings and increasing outreach capabilities.
Conclusion: Programs that strive to address the unique needs of clients experiencing homelessness face numerous challenges. Unique potential solutions to these barriers, such as service provision in a convenient location involving social and health services, incorporating allied health care providers in care to a greater extent, and updating policies to reflect the social complexity of the population can improve diabetes care
The English Catholic Dream of Gerontius: An Aesthetic Synthesis of Newman and Elgar
No full textDue to inherent paradoxy and limited sample size, fin-de-siècle English Catholic aesthetics are difficult to define, especially in the case of music. At the turn of the nineteenth century, English music and Catholic theology underwent a period of intense development and reconstruction, yet the intersection of theology and musical aesthetics in this era is largely under-researched. This paper identifies one such intersection using two monumental figures in theology and music: John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) and composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Newman’s theology provided a basis on which fin-de-siècle artists and poets could express their faith; such figures are associated with decadence. For both Newman and Elgar, decadent Catholicism combined with the traditionally Protestant English environment resulted in a complex relationship with their country and the continent. This paper examines this complex and paradoxical relationship between faith and nationality, and thus defines English Catholic aesthetics as they are expressed by Newman and Elgar
A Retrospective Investigation of Sex Differences in Cognition in Children and Young Adults
No full textThe present study is a retrospective analysis to determine whether sex differences in cognition exist in children and young adults (i.e., those between 4 and 18 years of age) and to further identify when these differences emerge across cognitive development. A cross-sectional research design was used to analyze data previously collected by a third-party collaborator. Data (N = 8,184) was collected using the Cambridge Brain Science cognitive test battery, followed by a demographic questionnaire completed by participants’ parents or guardians. Data were analyzed using factorial analysis of variance with age and gender as fixed factors. The results demonstrate that females score higher in verbal and reasoning domains as well as in tasks measuring deductive reasoning and attention. Males score higher in the short-term memory domain and in tasks measuring their spatial short-term memory. The emergence of sex differences in cognition varied across tasks, either appearing at the elementary (4 to 9 years), middle (10 to 13 years), or high school (14 to 18 years) levels. The effect of sex was absent when controlling for cofounding variables. The findings demonstrate that females and males are more similar than different from a cognitive perspective
A Cultural Challenge: Teaching Mathematics to Non-mathematicians
No full textA “mathematics for non-mathematicians” course, commonly known as a “service” course is an undergraduate mathematics course developed for students who are not (going to become) mathematics majors. Besides calculus, such courses may include linear algebra, mathematical reasoning, differential equations, mathematical programming and modeling, discrete mathematics, mathematics for teachers, and so on. In this article we argue that a good, productive curricular design and teaching of service courses happen through a meaningful collaboration between a mathematics instructor and the department whose students are taking the course. This collaboration ensures that “non-mathematicians” see the relevance of learning mathematics for their discipline (say, by discussing authentic problems and examples), but also appreciate the relevance and benefits which mathematics brings to their overall education and skills set
Skew-symmetric tridiagonal Bohemian matrices
No full textImage at right: Olga Taussky−Todd in her Caltech office circa 1960, wearing the famous "numbers" dress; photo courtesy Caltech Archives.
Abstract:
Skew-symmetric tridiagonal Bohemian matrices with population P = [1,i] have eigenvalues with some interesting properties. We explore some of these here, and I prove a theorem showing that the only possible dimensions where nilpotent matrices can occur are one less than a power of two. I explicitly give a set of matrices in this family at dimension m=2ᵏ−1 which are nilpotent, and recursively constructed from those at smaller dimension. I conjecture that these are the only matrices in this family which are nilpotent.
This paper will chiefly be of interest to those readers of my prior paper on Bohemian matrices with this structure who want more mathematical details than was provided there, and who want details of what has been proved versus what has been conjectured by experiment.
I also give a terrible pun. Don't say you weren't warned