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Steam? More STEAM! Using an architectural approach to preserve cultural knowledge in Sudbury, Ontario with a community sauna
No full textIn many communities, cultural knowledge of communal bathing rituals have been
passed for thousands of years. One of which is Finnish cultural knowledge of the
sauna bathing ritual. In the 1900s, over 250 000 single origin Finnish people moved
and settled in Ontario, Canada.2
However, with Finnish-Canadians, the gaps in the
cultural knowledge has increased with subsequent generations. Today, Sudbury
is still called home to over 7000 residents with Finnish heritage, however there
are no community saunas operating within the city.3
These unsettling issues thus
indicated that a thoughtful approach is needed to ensure the passing of Finnish
cultural knowledge of the sauna continues; one that does not require users to
have Finnish heritage to benefit from the knowledge. This thesis proposes mixing
architectural concepts of traditional Finnish sauna building knowledge and design
with a community-built approach a design proposal that recognizes these issues and
supports the cultivation of the continuity of cultural knowledge.Master of Architecture (M.Arch
A rocky solution: evaluating the use of common construction materials as road-effect mitigation for turtle communities in a rock barren landscape
No full textRoads are pervasive linear features that bisect landscapes, altering how female turtles use and
move between critical habitats during nesting migrations. While turtle population viability
depends on the survivorship of reproductive females, few cost-effective mitigation strategies
directly address their vulnerability to roads. The objective of my study was to evaluate a new
cost-effective mitigation strategy that used common construction materials to reduce road threats
for turtle communities in eastern Georgian Bay, Ontario. The mitigation design aimed to deter
females from nesting in roadside habitats by replacing ~ 300 m of exposed gravel at 5 wetland
crossings with rock rip-rap and paved road shoulders (using tar-and-chip), while the rest of the
road shoulders remained unchanged. The success of the mitigation strategy was assessed by
whether it successfully prevented females from using the road as nesting habitat. First, I used a
Before-During-After comparison of nesting observations and nest hot spots on the road. I found
a 15% decrease in the number of females nesting at Mitigated sites in the After period; however,
females continued to nest in the nearest available Unmitigated roadside habitat, including in
semi-compact tar-and-chip road shoulders at Mitigated sites. In addition, nesting hot spots
remained at Mitigated sites in the After period. Second, I investigated the availability and
suitability of natural nesting habitats in the surrounding rock barren landscape relative to nesting
habitats used by female turtles on road shoulders. I conducted systematic habitat surveys (in
10800 1m x 1m plots) to quantify the availability of suitable nesting habitats on open rock
barrens based on soil depth and canopy openness requirements for Species at Risk (SAR) turtles.
I found road shoulders met nesting habitat requirements for three local turtle species, whereas
only 1% of rock barrens in the 231-ha study area were suitable for turtle nesting. Overall, I found
the availability of suitable nesting habitats was limited across the natural landscape, which may
contribute to females’ selection of roadside nesting habitats. My findings suggest that the
mitigation strategy was unsuccessful at deterring female turtles from nesting on roads and should
not be applied without further research, especially in areas where natural nesting habitat may be
limited. I identified additional recovery actions, such as mortality mitigation (i.e., fenceunderpass mitigation) and nesting habitat restoration, that may be required to reduce road effects
for the turtle community. Overall, my project contributes to studies evaluating road-effect
mitigation and highlights several important findings that can be incorporated into Best
Management Practices for turtles during road development.Master of Science (MSc) in Biolog
Connected in Jane and Finch: a story of the people
No full textThe Jane and Finch neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario has served as a
crucial stepping stone to help new immigrants transition as they move
to a new country. Initially, the community had essential services and
support systems in place that would have made the transition easier.
However, as the neighbourhood has grown and changed in the past fifty
years, it has neglected to evolve these services and support systems to
suit the needs of the current demographic. This thesis is an exploration
of how to ensure that future generations living in Jane and Finch are set
up for success. It is also a story of the people living in Jane and Finch
and how to better serve them. By utilizing a methodology that relies
on a creative narrative, a more personal connection to the people and
neighbourhood is established, allowing for a sensitive design that targets
the users’ specific needs.Master of Architecture (M.Arch
Transcriptome analysis reveals changes in whole gene expression, biological processes and molecular functions induced by nickel and copper ions in Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana)
No full textUnderstanding the genetic response of plants to nickel and copper stress is a necessary step to
improving the utility of plants for environmental remediation and restoration. The objectives of
this study were to: 1) Characterize the transcriptome of Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana) and 2)
Analyze the gene expression profiles of genotypes exposed to nickel and copper ion toxicity. Pinus
banksiana seedlings were treated with 1,600 mg/kg of nickel sulfate or 1,300 mg of copper sulfate
and screened in a growth chamber. Overall, 25,552 transcripts were assigned gene ontology.
Nickel resistant and water control genotypes were compared based on the gene expression of
various gene ontology categories. The response to stress and to chemical terms comprised the
highest proportion of upregulated gene expression whereas the biosynthetic process and
carbohydrate metabolic process terms had the highest proportion of downregulated gene
expression. The majority of upregulated genes were expressed in the extracellular region and the
nucleus whereas most downregulated genes were expressed in the plasma membrane and
extracellular region. For copper, there were 6,213 upregulated genes and 29038 downregulated
genes expressed in the copper resistant genotype compared to the susceptible genotype at a high
stringency. Among the top upregulated genes, the response to stress, the biosynthetic process and
the response to chemical stimuli terms represented the highest proportion of gene expression for
the biological processes. For the molecular function category, the majority of expressed genes
were associated with nucleotide binding followed by transporter activity and kinase activity. For
the cellular component category, the majority of upregulated genes were located in the plasma
membrane. Half of the total downregulated genes were associated with the extracellular region.
Two candidate genes associated with copper resistance were identified including genes encoding
for heavy metal-associated isoprenylated plant proteins (AtHIP20 and AtHIP26) and a gene encoding the pleiotropic drug resistance protein 1 (NtPDR1). This study represents the first report
of transcriptomic response of a conifer species to nickel and copper ions.Master of Science (MSc) in Biolog
Predictors of therapy dropout and psychometric changes in personality in binge eating disorder following cognitive behavioural therapy
Get PDFBinge eating disorder (BED) is a recent addition to the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). There is limited clinical data in research literature about this disorder and how it is treated. Several studies have been done to examine predictors of therapy dropout for other eating disorders but very few have been done on BED specifically. The current study sought to better understand which factors would predict therapy dropout in a population of BED clients. A group with BED took part in a 20-week course of group-based CBT in an eating disorders program and approximately two thirds of these clients did not complete the full course. The clients’ self-reported levels of depression, anxiety, coping strategy preferences for stressful situations, and eating disorder symptomology were measured before and after the CBT course and the goal of this study was to examine if differing levels of pre-treatment symptoms could predict a client’s likelihood for successfully completing CBT. This study also examined the post-treatment changes in binge eating frequency, coping strategies, state and trait anxiety, eating disorder symptomology and depression. Overall, no significant predictors of therapy dropout were identified. Other findings showed that after their treatment the clients who remained in treatment reported less eating disorder symptomology, depression, endorsed fewer emotional coping strategies and more task-oriented coping strategies, and reported fewer binge eating episodes. A correlation between time spent in treatment and a reduction in binge eating episodes was also found. While no predictors of therapy dropout were found in these pre-treatment measures, this study suggests that clients who completed treatment had several positive outcomes, and it highlights the need for further investigation into alternative screening methods for treatment retention beyond quantitative tests
Canadian lone mothers: structural and systemic barriers in social work practice
Get PDFThis Advanced Practicum Project Report examined the experience of my advanced
practicum at the Canadian Mental Health Association North Bay and District (CMHA). This
report reflects on the questions from the onset and my learning goals that consisted of
understanding how the structural and systemic barriers that are in existence impact Canadian
lone mothers’ social determinants of health; in allyship with experts by experience (Canadian
lone mothers), to understand what Canadian lone mothers suggest needs to occur to mitigate or
eradicate these barriers; to become knowledgeable about local community services, if any, so I
can better refer lone mothers in instances where the placement organization is not suitable or
does not offer the supports; to learn how to best support lone mothers from a structural, AOP,
feminist approach in community social services. Furthermore, this report describes how the
identified learning goals were adequately met through methods of shadowing case managers,
conducting client sessions/interventions, performing clientele home visits, conducting research
that focused on Canadian lone mothers, confiding with CMHA staff and my practicum
supervisor, and receiving clinical supervision from my Masters of Social Work supervisor. The
Advanced Practicum Report concludes with implications for transformative social work practice
Cultivating self-compassion for sexual and gender minority youth: exploring the benefits of an arts-based mindfulness program
No full textGrowing up in a world that consistently denies and judges your existence presents many
mental health challenges for Sexual and Gender Minority Youth (SGMY). For many SGMY
living in unsafe or unsupportive households, they lack space to be authentic in their mental
health challenges leading to avoidance or maladaptive coping. For SGMY living in Northeastern
Ontario, they lack affirming and creative spaces to receive care for their mental health when
traditional clinical approaches don’t always meet their needs. My study explored the delivery of
an arts-based mindfulness program called “The Holistic Arts-Based Program” (HAP) to SGMY
living in Northeastern Ontario experiencing challenges with their mental health and determined
several benefits. Qualitative data analysis from pre- and post-group group interviews led to the
construction of three main themes that described the participants’ experiences of participating in
HAP. The themes are: (1) benefits of learning mindfulness skills/concepts, (2) benefits of arts-
based methods, (3) benefits of strength-based group work. Participation in HAP helped SGMY
effectively apply and understand mindfulness-based coping strategies to cope with minority
stress. HAP also helped SGMY explore their authentic identities and develop self-compassion
for them; self-compassion has been evidenced to be a source of resiliency and to act as a
protective factor against both internalized homophobia and more negative perceived reactions to
coming out. My research demonstrates how HAP can make a difference for SGMY mental
health and shows how inherently resilient this population is
The role of animal personality in the pace-of-life of coexisting rodents
No full textThe pace-of-life syndrome hypothesis (POLS) predicts that life-history, behaviour, and
physiology correlate along a fast to slow continuum. Relationships between POLS
domains evolve in response to natural selection and energetic trade-offs at different
phylogenetic levels. Access to resources is dependent on movement within a home-range,
and differences in movement strategies should arise to accommodate competition among
sympatric species and between conspecifics. I examined behaviours relating to home-
range movement among sympatric rodents and between sexes. I tested two hypotheses:
(1) sympatric rodents will express differences in movement behaviours to accommodate
resource competition; and (2) differences in behaviour and physiology will arise between
sexes because of differences in reproductive costs. I found differences in behaviour
among species, and a uniform expression of traits relating to movement within a home-
range between sexes. My results help to understand differences in animal personality,
movement patterns and sex-specific strategies in rodents.Master of Science (MSc) in Biolog
RoBERTa: a machine reading comprehension for climate change question answering in natural language processing
No full textWith the advancement of artificial intelligence technology in various domains in the past few
years, the question-answering system has brought important changes to the knowledge acquisition
process. When compared to the conventional retrieval question-answering system, the question-
answering system that uses machine reading comprehension can provide short and accurate
answers. This thesis proposes an intelligent question-answering approach based on information
retrieval and machine reading comprehension. To begin, a two-stage information retrieval
approach is developed. To produce a contextualized vector representation, the first dense vector
technique (SRoBERTa) is utilized to roughly collect relevant climate change material. Second, an
algorithm (DPR) is used, which precisely uses and organizes related paragraphs in order to obtain
replies to the paragraph that are incredibly relevant to the question at hand. The model is then
improved using a mechanism known as RoBERTa during the machine reading comprehension
stage. It is carried out by utilizing these texts and then looking for concise and to-the-point
solutions. When compared to other common methods, the results of information retrieval and
reading comprehension show that the models developed in this study perform well.Master of Science (MSc) in Computational Science
Enhancing neural mean teacher learning-based emotion-centric model for image captioning
Get PDFImage captioning is a task in computer vision and natural language processing that involves
generating a textual description of the content of an image. The goal of image captioning is to
create a system that can accurately recognize the objects, attributes, and relationships depicted
in an image, and generate a meaningful description of it in natural language, typically in the
form of a sentence or short paragraph. One of the state-of-the-art methods that we can use for
image captioning is Nemesis: Neural Mean Teacher Learning-based Emotion-centric Speaker.
Nemesis is a neural mean teacher learning-based emotion-centric speaker. It is a proposed
neural speaker capable of leveraging emotional supervision signals in the caption generation
process. Nemesis has been applied to the recently introduced ArtEmis dataset, which is the first
large-scale dataset for emotion-centric image captioning, containing 455K emotional
descriptions of 80K artworks from WikiArt. In this study, I employed a straightforward but
improved version of Self-Critical Sequence Training. By modifying the baseline function
choice in the REINFORCE algorithm, I introduced a simple alteration. The updated baseline
offers enhanced performance without any additional expenses, when compared to the baseline
that utilizes greedy decoding