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A biomechanical analysis of sex and age's effect on the squat and lunge exercises
No full textWith the growing base of research concerning mechanisms of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and knee injuries in post-pubertal female athletes, little research has investigated the suitability of common therapeutic exercises. Many injury-causing exercises are performed at a high intensity or velocity, a frequently cited mechanism within these is the valgus collapse or dynamic knee valgus (DKV). Rehabilitative or preventative programs employ lower-intensity movements to re-train or prevent this risk-inducing maneuver, with the squat and lunge being staple exercises in these programs. It was hypothesized that females would demonstrate higher degrees of hip adduction and range of motion (ROM) and higher hip abduction maximum and mean internal moments, as well as knee maximum and mean internal adduction moments throughout both the lunge and squat. Age was hypothesized to have the same effect as sex, where older groups would exhibit the same proposed risk-inducing traits of females. A group of 90 participants from a longitudinal ACL injury research study were tracked performing both the squat and lunge using motion capture and force plate data. Frontal and sagittal plane joint angles and internal moments of the hip and knee joints were tracked and analyzed. Where the sex and age of an athlete are seen to impact knee injury rates, a two-way analysis of variance model was
used, comparing sex (male and female) and age (young and old). Two notable sex effects were found, being the decrease in hip joint ROM (p=.014) and the increase in abduction internal moment (p=.015) experienced by females during the squat. Numerous age effects were found, causing an increase in frontal plane hip joint angle ROM in the squat (p=.032), but a decrease in the lunge (p<.001) for the old group. Age effects in internal joint moments showed increases in maximum abduction (p=.014) and mean (p=.046) hip joint frontal plane moment in the lunge in both older groups. An interaction effect was found for both with maximum knee extension and mean knee extension internal moments during the lunge, with younger males demonstrating a smaller maximum (p<.001) and mean (p<.001) moment than their older counterparts. Though some significance reflects the hypothesized increase of proposed injury-inducing traits of females and older individuals as seen in high-intensity movements, primarily only age effects were present. Though the significance of the results is largely inconclusive, the present effect of age increasing lower limb biomechanics leading to DKV is a consideration to be taken in the
prescription and administration of the squat and lunge
Composition and origin of xenocrysts in the Eastern Shore spessartite dykes, Nova Scotia
No full textThe Eastern Shore dykes are a swarm of mantle-derived spessartite (lamprophye) dykes in the Sheet Harbour area of eastern Nova Scotia. Two of the dykes, Pleasant Harbour-Borgles Island and Popes Harbour, contain abundant xenoliths and xenocrysts. Some of the xenoliths are granulite-facies metamorphic rocks that in previous studies were shown to contain high-pressure mineral assemblages and hence were interpreted to represent deeper crust of the Meguma terrane. This study was undertaken to investigate the xenocryst minerals in the dykes to determine their composition and provenance. Xenocrysts were studied in two samples from the Borgles Island - Pleasant Harbour dyke that were selected because they contain abundant and varied xenocrysts. About twenty thin section-sized chips were cut from those samples, and 14 chips with abundant xenocrysts were studied in polished sections and analyzed for major and trace elements by electron microprobe and LA-ICP-MS. Based on the petrologic evidence, the xenocrysts are divided into three groups: (1) silicate xenocrysts including amphibole, garnet, clinopyroxene, quartz, K-feldspar and kyanite; (2) unidentifiable altered xenocrysts completed replaced by chlorite and other secondary minerals; and (3) sulphide xenocrysts that consist of pyrite with small inclusions of chalcopyrite. Most silicate xenocrysts were likely derived from disaggregation of xenoliths in which similar minerals have been reported and which have textual and compositional similarities to the xenocrysts. Thermobarometric calculations based on clinopyroxene and amphibole xenocryst compositions indicate that they were derived from mid-crustal level (ca. 25 km) whereas the dykes were emplaced at depths of 11-14 km. Because of their large size the quartz xenocrysts may represent pieces of vein quartz. The origin of the pyrite xenocrysts remains uncertain, although their trace element compositions suggest that they
are of low temperature hydrothermal origin
Assessing the response and transition of Nova Scotia lobster harvesters on the decarbonization of lobster fleets
No full textThe objective of this study is to identify common perspectives and barriers of Nova Scotia lobster harvesters on the topic of lobster fleet decarbonization. The study is designed to help Canada reach its 2050 goal of zero-net emissions by promoting clean, sustainable technology and was administered via survey to 94 Nova Scotian lobster harvesters. Variables such as age, role aboard the vessel, lobster fishing area worked and years in the industry were compared using descriptive analyses and Pearson correlation tests. Questions regarding the lobster harvester's total willingness to adapt fishing methods of the survey were converted to a numerical scale. Cronbach's alpha was determined (0.80) to ensure internal consistency. The final question of the survey was open-ended and gathered qualitative data that was analyzed by performing a top-down coding technique. The main findings of the study suggest that lobster fishing areas have a varied willingness to adapt fishing methods, based on their location. It was also found that age does not play a big role in the total willingness of lobster harvesters. Previous knowledge of climate change effects on the lobster harvesting industry is lacking. The main physical barriers that were identified included financial concerns, safety issues, additional labour and battery concerns. The main emotional barriers that were identified were comfortability, mistrust, and unreliability of alternative fuel vessels. This study suggests that an improvement in climate change knowledge, specifically the effects of climate change on the lobster harvesting industry to Nova Scotia lobster harvesters may ease the transition to decarbonized lobster fleets
Late quaternary geochronology and stratigraphy of St. Anns Basin, offshore Nova Scotia
No full textSt. Anns Basin is a Quaternary offshore intrashelf basin located SE of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The eastern Scotian Shelf remains a poorly understood area due to its complex physiography
reflecting a more meltwater-rich glacial regime (tunnel valley style) as the final ice sheet retreated from the offshore following the Last Glacial Maximum. In this study, an archival sediment core was used that
targets a glaciomarine sediment package on the eastern margin of the basin to update the chronology using radiocarbon dating of benthic foraminifera and shell fragments. The sediment core contains
suspected brick red mud layers associated with major deglacial ice-calving events, precisely dated in the nearby Laurentian Channel and elsewhere on the Scotian Shelf and Slope. An updated lithostratigraphic section alongside biostratigraphic interpretation was used to provide a framework for the deglacial chronology of the basin, the first for this part of the shelf. The updated chronology also allowed the development of a seismostratigraphic framework for St. Anns Basin to interpret and constrain mass failures found throughout the basin. The mass failures were found to be essentially contemporaneous, occurring ~ 8.2 ka BP, possibly constituting a seismically induced event. The updated timing of these mass transport deposits will allow for a better assessment of the geohazard risk in the basin
The impacts of elementary and secondary school financial education on the financial literacy levels of university students
No full textThe definition of financial literacy varies but can be summarized as the knowledge, skills, and confidence one has to make sound and informed financial decisions. There has been an increased interest in financial literacy in recent years which has coincided with the increased debts faced by students. It is known that young people are burdened with higher amounts of debt which has detrimental impacts on their lives, resulting in decreased physical and mental well-being. As interest rates and inflation are on the rise, there is an increasing importance placed on personal financial well-being and financial literacy attainment among people of all ages, but particularly students as they enter life post-graduation. This research paper aims to investigate the current state of financial literacy among university students and tries to identify a connection between the financial education received in elementary and secondary school. More specifically, the aim is to investigate whether receiving financial education improves financial literacy skills and overall confidence. This study used quantitative research methods via a survey which yielded 86 responses that were then analyzed to determine the financial literacy levels of university students. The results of the study show that there appears to be a relationship between those who received financial education in elementary and secondary school and the financial literacy levels of university students, with slightly higher levels observed among business students. This then answered the research question by displaying that those who have received financial literacy education in elementary and secondary school are more financially literate as university students. The research results support the existing research in this field. One surprising point was the sources of financial literacy; the results were not as expected with less than half of the respondents receiving financial education in a classroom setting and a majority stating their primary source was parents and/or family. The findings from the study will provide valuable insights into the reality of financial literacy in a school context, informing future researchers and educators about what areas require further examination. Further research is needed to validate or invalidate the study's findings and provide a better understanding of the landscape.</p
Impacts of pathogens on winter behaviour and physiology of black-legged ticks, Ixodes scapularis
No full textThe ranges of arthropod vectors of disease are expanding globally due to climate change. Since the early 1990s, the range of the black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) has expanded in Canada, increasing the risk of tick-borne pathogen infection in humans. Tick-borne pathogens may modify the behaviour and physiology of their tick hosts in ways that promote their range expansion, including increasing their ability to survive Canadian winters. For example, infection with Borrelia burgdoferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, is associated with improved overwintering survival in adult, female I. scapularis. The mechanism through which this occurs is unclear but may be linked to changes in winter behaviour (i.e. activity levels) and cold tolerance. My objectives were to: (1) determine whether tick-borne pathogens alter the winter activity of I. scapularis and (2) determine whether tick-borne pathogens alter the physiology of I. scapularis in the winter by examining the expression of target genes related to cold-tolerance (iafgp and hsp70) and energy use and activity (gpdh). Almost half (45.74%) of the adult Ixodes scapularis collected in Nova Scotia were infected with B. burgdoferi. Winter activity varied significantly among individual ticks, but infection did not impact activity. Ticks became active during the winter at temperatures above 0°C with increased activity at higher temperatures, which indicates that I. scapularis in Nova Scotia quest in the winter when temperatures are permissive. Ticks also became active at temperatures below the previously established lower threshold of tick questing activity, between 0-4°C. Tick activity decreased over the course of the activity monitoring period, representing a seasonal response to environmental conditions in I. scapularis. Expression of iafgp, hsp70, and gpdh were not affected by infection with B. burgdorferi, or tick winter activity. Thus, neither changes in activity nor key genes related to various aspects of tick overwintering explain how infection impacts overwintering survival. Overall, I demonstrate individual variation in activity that could impact the relative risk of tick encounter during winters in Nova Scotia, and suggest that explaining this variation will help us to predict the future of tick-borne diseases in Canada.</p
Analysis of macroinvertebrate populations to assess ecosystem health in the Medway River, Nova Scotia
No full textThis study monitored macroinvertebrate populations at nine sites on the Medway river, Nova Scotia in 2021 and 2022 to assess macroinvertebrate diversity, pollution tolerance, and trophic impacts and inform management of Atlantic Salmon Salmo salar Lineaus, 1758. 2084 macroinvertebrates were collected in 139 sampling sessions from June–July 2021 to May–September 2022. Insects and crustaceans were identified to family level, and other macroinvertebrates were identified to class or subclass. Ten orders and 45 families of insects and crustaceans were identified, and their photos and identification characteristics are provided in the Appendix.
Ephemeroptera was the most prevalent order despite an average pH of 5.67 ± 0.51 at sampling sites. Low pH is a limiting factor for Ephemeroptera but did not impact abundance in this study. Pilou's evenness of families was 0.79. The high diversity and abundance of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) indicate high water quality due to their intolerance of pollution. 18 EPT families were identified, and EPT taxa comprised 52% of all samples. Hilsenhoff's Biotic Index (HBI) was calculated to assess water quality by assigning each family a level of pollution tolerance. The HBI of all samples was 4.54, which places it in the "Good - Some organic pollution" category. Diversity, abundance, and biotic indices varied between sampling sites but did not approach statistical significance. Diversity and abundance showed a downward trend in later months, peaking in spring and decreasing in autumn.
Results of macroinvertebrate sampling show a diverse ecosystem composed of pollution-intolerant taxa. This reflects positively on the use of the Medway River as salmon smolt habitat
Fictionalizing the reader in Joseph Andrews and Oliver Twist
No full textThis thesis illustrates the process by which real readers become fictionalized in Joseph Andrews and Oliver Twist. I examine the rules and restrictions by which the Reader is forced to abide, and how these restrictions create the illusion of the Reader's intrinsic inclusion in the narrative. In Joseph Andrews and Oliver Twist, Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens create a fictional figure for the real reader to play, thereby allowing the Reader to take part in the fiction. This fictional Reader is inserted by the narrator who acts as their guide, inciting the Reader to participate in the story. In chapter one I investigate the process by which the fictional Reader is formed alongside the narrator in Joseph Andrews. Throughout the text, Fielding creates the illusion that there is an interplay happening between Reader and narrator, insinuating not only that the Reader and narrator are interacting, but that they become intimate with each other. In chapter two I examine how Oliver Twist acquaints the Reader with its fictional characters and in so doing lets the Reader interact and become intimate with them. The interactive relationships between the Reader and the characters leads the Reader to rely on the characters in order to navigate the story. As their relationship with the characters unfolds, the Reader has to decide which characters are worth relying on as characters distinguish themselves as allies or
adversaries of the Reader. In this thesis I demonstrate how the story of the Reader is interwoven in the story of the text in Joseph Andrews and Oliver Twist, telling the story of how the fictional Reader comes to know and rely on the fictional narrator, how they come to trust or spurn its fictional characters, and how they get to move through and in the midst of a fictional world
Masking the relationship between orthography and phonology: an ERP study
No full textThe present study examined the impact of orthography on spoken word recognition using Event Related Potentials (ERPs). The proposed research contributes to the body of evidence on the effects of orthography on spoken word recognition by further limiting the possibility of bias caused by strategically evoked responses through the adoption of a cross modal approach, the use of pseudowords, as well as a backward visual mask. The paradigm employed in the present study, a lexical decision task, included visual pseudoword primes, paired with auditory real-word or pseudoword targets. Each of these prime-target pairs fit into one of the following conditions P+O+ (e.g., "foap" priming "soap"), P+O-, (e.g., "foap" priming "hope");; or P-O-, (e.g., "foap" priming "wait"). Results did not find evidence of an orthographic effect on auditory word processing. There was a trend towards a marginal phonological priming effect at FZ, but it was not statistically significant. A small portion of the data was excluded due to artifacts which
decreased the sample size and therefore the power of the study. Future studies could modify the presentation of stimulus in testing and masking conditions to try to reduce artifacts and thus adding to the sample size before drawing firm conclusions on orthographic effects on auditory word processing
Optimizing the feature set for machine learning charitable predictions
No full textMachine learning (ML) has grown increasingly popular in the domain of charitable giving. Charities use ML to make predictions about their potential donors. These predictions can help determine which donors should be focused on by the charity. As the popularity of machine learning has grown within charitable giving, so has the amount of data that is being collected. One way that the amount of data has grown is through the number of unique features being collected. Machine learning algorithm run time’s scale with the amount of data given to the algorithm. Therefore, by removing some of the extraneous features, the algorithm’s run time would improve. Our goal is to reduce the number of unique features a model needs from its data as much as possible while maintaining accuracy and minimizing computation time. Our approach is to remove different feature subsets and observe the changes in accuracy and computational time. Correlated features and feature importance are also investigated as tools to reduce the feature set. These experiments are conducted using three different algorithms: random forest classifiers (RFC), k-nearest neighbours (KNN), and artificial neural networks (ANN). Random forests were found to produce the highest accuracy with the lowest computational time. KNNs produced higher accuracy than ANNs, but at the cost of more computational time. The highest accuracies were achieved by models that had ‘donation’ features in their usable data. Donation features represent donors’ donation habits, such as their maximum or average donation.</p