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Dream ads: does playback of sonic brands during sleep influence brand perception?
No full textDream technology, aimed at engineering dreams and inducing lucid dreams, may soon be a possibility. However, who will pay for this technology? While the idea of dream advertising is controversial, dream ads may hold the key to making dream technology freely available to endusers. However, advertisers will only pay for dream ads if they can be shown to be effective. This study tested the effects of playing sonic brand audio cues during sleep on brand Familiarity, Likability and Recall, as well as testing for dream incorporation of these cues. Participants (N=9) began the study by filling out a pre-study questionnaire of 10 brands (Netflix, McDonald’s, Klondike, NBC, MGM, TUMS, Nationwide, LG, Peacock, and Playstation). Audio cue playback occurred while participants were asleep in bed over a period of 8 nights. Participant sleep and dream data was collected using the DreamDirector app, Apple Watch, and iPhone. The audio cues were played from the iPhone speaker in the home sleep environment. Participants then completed a pre-study questionnaire, a post-study questionnaire, and then a follow-up questionnaire one week later. We hypothesized that exposure to sonic branding during sleep and dreaming would produce better Recall, Familiarity, and stronger Likability towards those brands. However, the results showed an insignificant effect of the conditions on the variables throughout time which could be explained by the small sample size. Though, there was one example of incorporation of a brand into a dream report. The findings suggest an increasing trend of the scores which implies that there is a possibility that playback can have an effect on user’s recognition of the brands.Keywords: Dream incorporation, dream script, sonic branding, audio, cues, lucid dreaming</p
Exploring the perceived preparedness of physiotherapists providing care for veterans in Atlantic Canada
No full textResearch has shown that physiotherapy is a highly utilized treatment and effective for contributing to veterans’ wellbeing. While studies have explored the perspectives of various healthcare providers who treat veterans (e.g., family physicians, mental health workers) little is known about physiotherapists’ experience of treating veterans. This study explores the gap in the research to describe key aspects of physiotherapists’ experiences in efforts to gain insight into perceived feelings of preparedness and identify possible barriers and facilitators to providing veteran care. Using a descriptive qualitative study design, six semi-structured interviews were conducted with physiotherapists in Atlantic Canada who work in a private practice setting. Interviews explored the unique considerations of working with a veteran population, perceptions of preparedness and possible barriers. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Four overarching themes were identified in the data. The first theme relates to participants going above and beyond to provide care to veterans. The second describes physiotherapists’ feelings of preparedness to provide care, identifying a lack of formal training available. The third theme describes the value of a culturally competent and holistic approach to care and the fourth theme captures barriers to the provision of quality care to veterans. In general, participants described developing a sense of preparedness and competence to treat veterans though informal, ad hoc processes involving experience, exposure, and self-reflection. Many described feeling confident to treat veterans at this point in their career, but most agreed that tailored training would optimize their abilities to provide more effective care.</p
Understanding self-destructive risk-taking behaviours from the perspective of withdrawal from life
No full textThe ever-growing body of literature on risk-taking poses many reasons for why people engage in such behaviours, and yet few attempt to pose an existentially-based reason such as fatalistic withdrawal. Building upon dominant theories of existential psychology, recent literature argues that when defenses against the threat of death fail, an impulse to withdraw from the goal to live is triggered. This state of being withdrawn from life is dubbed fatalistic withdrawal, because it entails giving up on everything and resigning oneself to fate. Based on extant literature, the current study hypothesizes that people who are fatalistically withdrawn (i.e., low in desire to live) will be more open to engaging in risky behaviours when mortality is salient, and that trait impulsivity will exacerbate this effect. A sample of 501 participants was collected to test this hypothesis. Participants completed self-report measures of trait impulsivity and desire to live, were then randomly assigned to think about death (vs. a non-death-related control topic), and indicated their openness to engage in risky self-destructive behaviour (e.g., drug use, aggression, unsafe sex, recklessness). Results showed significant main effects of trait impulsivity and desire to live on openness to self-destructive riskiness, but no significant higher-order interactions were found. Additional analyses explored specific facets of risky behaviour and found partial support for the main hypothesis, but a priori replication is required to ensure reliability. Discussion is focused on implications for understanding risky self-destructive behaviour, with a specific focus on trait impulsivity and desire to live.Keywords: Fatalistic withdrawal, Desire to live, Mortality Salience, Impulsivity, Risk-taking</p
Rotted floorboards
No full textRotted Floorboards is a creative honours thesis focused on the intersection between the burgeoning subgenre of ecohorror and industrialization. Asking, what fills in the spaces we have abandoned? When the mineshaft of a former company town reopens, people go missing and something new is introduced into the environment. The characters are confronted not only with the indifferent nature of a non-human entity but also the industrial past and what it creates. Sybil must come to terms with the changing environment she once knew so well. While Ira manages the scars of his industrial past and the deeper mystery of the missing men. Horror comes from our guilt and ignorance upon confronting something we do not know but have had a hand in creating. When we leave things to rot, something takes its place.</p
Microplastics in an aerial insectivore and aquatic emergent insects: observational and experimental field studies
No full textmarine megafauna, however knowledge on plastic litter in terrestrial and aquatic systems is less understood. The focus of plastic pollution has shifted from macroplastics (> 5 mm in diameter) to microplastics (MPs; plastic particles < 5 mm). MPs come in various morphological forms such as fibres, fragments, spheres and foams and can be either primary (manufactured MPs) or secondary (larger plastics broken down into smaller ones). MPs can be transported throughout and across ecosystems, reaching nearly every corner of the planet. With millions of tons of microplastics released into the environment annually, it is critical to understand their fate and effects they can impose on biota. Moreover, MPs can move within and among habitats, potentially providing additional pathways of effects on fauna. Microplastics are ingested by benthic invertebrates, such as aquatic emergent insects. Emergent insects in their larval stages live and feed in the sediment of freshwater systems before emerging into flying adults, where they become prey for terrestrial predators, such as the tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor). Consequently, aquatic emergent insects provide a link between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and could thus be biotransporting microplastics from water to land. I investigated two key components of potential MP bio-transport: a) MP ingestion by aquatic emergent insects subjected to MPs in a mesocosm experiment; and b) the presence of microplastics in fecal sacs collected from tree swallow chicks. Insects were collected at the International Institute of Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area, in northwestern Ontario, Canada, where my research was part of a large, whole-lake MP dosing experiment to investigate the fate and effects of MPs on aquatic biota. Twelve open-bottom mesocosms were dosed with a known concentration of MPs, and emergent insects were collected at the surface water for 8 weeks. Insects from the groups Chironomidae and Ephemeroptera ingested microplastics (0.021 ± 0.10 and 6.25 ± 5.91 MP/insect, respectively), and chironomids ingested more MPs when exposed to higher concentrations. My findings show that emergent insects exposed to MPs in their larval stages in a natural setting have the potential to carry those MPs to the terrestrial ecosystem after emergence. In the second chapter of my thesis, I studied MP ingestion by tree swallows in two habitat types in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada; birds foraging over an agricultural site and birds foraging over salt marsh. Fecal sacs collected from both sites contained suspected microplastics (SMPs) (1.02 ± 1.15 and 1.40 ± 1.46 SMP/fecal sac at the agricultural site and saltmarsh, respectively), though no differences were detected between the two sites. Only microfibers were found in the fecal sacs from both sites. While I conclude that tree swallow chicks are ingesting SMPs from the environment, likely from their prey, my findings do not strongly suggest that tree swallow fecal sacs are optimal for biomonitoring MP pollution in their habitat. Through my two chapters, I show plastic ingestion occurs in key components of different trophic members in a food chain, highlighting the complexity of the movement of MPs, and warranting further research into the interface between two linked ecosystems.</p
Using harvester-collected data to identify influences of an electromagnetic field from a high voltage direct current undersea power cable on lobster Homarus americanus catches in lobster fishing area 27
No full textA high voltage direct current undersea power cable was installed partially within Lobster Fishing Area 27 in 2017, raising concerns from harvesters about potential impacts of EMF on lobster. Lobster behaviour and larval development have been shown to be affected by EMF. Nine years of harvester-collected lobster data were analyzed with respect to the potential impact of EMF from this cable. A non-spatial frequentist model (GLM), spatial frequentist model (GLMMPQL) and spatial Bayesian model (INLA) were fit to four measures of lobster condition that were consistently recorded by lobster harvesters. Distance to the cable, distance to the coast, depth, and northing were included as spatial factors in all models. Depth was the most consistently significant predictor for lobster condition, with all measures of lobster condition worsening with increasing depth in all models. The INLA models found coefficients with larger 95% credible intervals compared to the 95% confidence intervals of the GLM and GLMMPQL in most cases. The GLM and GLMMPQL estimated similar coefficients and 95% confidence intervals in most cases. Near-range effects of EMF from the cable were inspected using five 500 m bins of distance near the cable, but most measures of lobster condition were better fit using a linear effect of distance. A baseline linear effect of distance to the future cable location was found for carapace length in all models (carapace length increasing with increasing distance from the cable), despite the cable not yet being installed. AR1 models of three of the measures of lobster condition (legal mass per trap, culls, and abnormal clutches) by day of season showed varying levels of potential impact of harvesting on lobster condition. The data were generally noisy, with deviance poorly explained by the models, and all effect sizes were relatively small. The findings of this study confirm the need for taking spatial autocorrelation into consideration when analyzing large amounts of irregularly distributed geographic data.</p
Under the influence - do anesthetics, analgesics and tagging procedures alter the thermal responses of an amphibious mangrove fish?
No full textGlobal warming has pressured our need to understand how abiotic and biotic factors influence the thermal responses of ectotherms. Due to their ability to voluntarily emerge from water and avoid unfavorable conditions, mangrove rivulus (Kryptolebias marmoratus) can be used to estimate the upper pejus temperature, a thermal performance trait, by measuring their emersion temperature (Tem). Identifying whether biotic factors, like group dynamics, affect their thermal response requires a means to distinguish amongst grouped individuals. Visible implant elastomer tags may serve as an effective method for distinguishing individuals; however, invasive tagging process may influence their thermal response. We exposed mangrove rivulus to different anesthetic/analgesic treatments to determine which protocol, if any, could be used without disrupting thermal tolerance. Induction and recovery times were significantly higher in fish exposed to a lidocaine-eugenol combination in comparison to solely eugenol-based anesthesia. Neither anesthetic/analgesic treatments significantly changed the thermal response of fish after 24 hours of recovery. We decided to go forward with the use of the anesthetic eugenol in our tagging protocol. Significant differences in the emersion temperatures were detected in sham-tagged and tagged fish relative to fish that had recovered from anesthesia for 24 hours without experiencing invasive procedures. Given that these effects were insignificant when recovery periods were extended to 10 days, we concluded that this tagging protocol could be used to study the thermal response of grouped fish. Future tagging refinements are however needed to improve recovery.</p
Using velocity-based thresholds to monitor fitness and fatigue in varsity athletes
No full textStrength training is used by athletes – in a multitude of ways, to improve performance due to the adaptations that arise from training. These adaptations are due to the different types of fatigue that are exhibited throughout training. Traditionally, a percentage-based method of an athlete's 1RM was used to prescribe training load. Due to the advancements in technology, velocity-based training was developed to target specific training outcomes across the strength continuum. One method used to control fatigue in training is the velocity-loss threshold (VLT) method, which has been shown to elicit specific outcomes based on the number of repetitions completed before dropping below a specific velocity target. In previous research, comparative groups at high and low velocity-loss completed the same number of sets, resulting in a different number of total repetitions and different training volumes. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare training using 10% and 30% VLT when the training volume is standardized, to determine which threshold is more effective in minimizing fatigue and enhancing performance in well-trained athletes. Fifteen male university football athletes participated in a crossover study that used 10% or 30% VLT in the back squat (BSQ) exercise 2x/week for 6 weeks, as part of an overall program. Estimated 1RM BSQ, isometric belt squat (IBSQ) and countermovement jump (CMJ) on a force plate, were tested pre and post 6-week training blocks. Smallest worthwhile enhancements (SWE) were evident in the BSQ and IBSQ force for VL30 training completed in any order, when done as the first six weeks, or before VL10 training over 12 weeks. VL30 condition and the VL30-VL10 order had the greatest impact on the BSQ and IBSQ, possibly due to greater metabolic fatigue induced during this training, producing greater adaptation.</p
Canada's forgotten war in Russia
No full textThe Russian Civil War and the Allied interventions therein are understudied in the Western world. Canada’s place in the interventions remains particularly obscure, though Canadian connections in Russia before and during the Russian Civil War are numerous and often peculiar, beyond the deployment of significant contingents of soldiers in support of Allied efforts in Russia’s White Sea ports and the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of this episode in Canadian history, an obscured aftershock to the First World War. Wartime strategy against Germany found Canadian soldiers deployed in North Russia, among the remotest fronts of the war, where they were ultimately locked into combat with the fledgling Bolsheviks. The Armistice meant little to these soldiers, who continued to fight until the summer thaw permitted their withdrawal. Having effectively constructed from scratch a significant military in the preceding four years, the young Canadian dominion sought to translate its newfound military might and status as a middle power into what ultimately became a debacle in Siberia. While personal narratives and military events are touched upon, this article is primarily a work of diplomatic and strategic history. This article navigates Canada’s place and emphasizes the agency it asserted within an immensely complex, confused, and dysfunctional diplomatic and strategic environment, in consultation with primary sources and the work of other scholars. Novelly, this period’s relevance to the present is analyzed by incorporating Russian historiography and popular memorialization of the interventions.</p
Early detection of Alzheimer's disease using positron emission tomography with a 3 dimensional convolutional neural network
No full textEarly diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is essential, especially given the limitations in medical resources. This thesis explores the use of a 3D Convolutional Neural Network (3D CNN) for the automated detection of AD using Fludeoxyglucose Possitron Emission Tomography (FDG-PET) scans from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). The selected PET scans underwent preprocessing, which included reordering slices, normalizing pixel intensities to the [0,1] range, and resizing volumes to a standardized 64×64×64 voxel grid.The model was trained and validated on a balanced dataset and evaluated across ten independent test runs, achieving an average accuracy of 71.25% with an average loss of 0.62. The best-performing run reached an accuracy of 78.75% with a loss of 0.5676, demonstrating the model’s ability to capture key metabolic patterns in PET scans. These promising results highlight the potential of 3D CNNs for early AD detection, offering a foundation for further improvements in deep learning-based diagnostic tools.</p