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Food insecurity amongst Canadian children with food allergy during the COVID-19 pandemic
Get PDFAbstract Food insecurity is a growing concern, that is currently estimated to affect 1 in 4 Canadian children. Due to the additional effort required for management and the disproportionate cost of allergy friendly foods, households with food allergy may be at increased risk of experiencing food insecurity. With this in mind, we aimed to describe and compare the prevalence of food insecurity amongst children in households managing pediatric food allergy between 2019, 2020 and 2022 using a repeated cross-sectional design. A total of 117 participants were recruited via social media between these three distinct timepoints, referred to as waves. All participants completed an anonymous online survey consisting of demographic questions and the Household Food Security Module from the Canadian Community Health Survey. Rates of child food insecurity were comparable between Waves 1 and 2 (34% and 35%, respectively; p=0.75), but, increased significantly between Waves 2 and 3 (35% and 56%, respectively; p=0.005). Amongst children identified as food insecure, the proportion who were marginally food insecure remained relatively stable, whereas, levels of moderate food insecurity appeared to increase, although not significantly. Conversely, the proportion classified as severely food insecure decreased across the waves, but again, this difference was not statistically significant. Our findings demonstrate an upward trend in child food insecurity levels, showcasing the need for a larger scale, longitudinal evaluation of the intersection between food allergy and food insecurity. We call on researchers and policy makers to attend to this important issue
Reimagining endogeneity in trade and migration: using shift-share instruments and machine learning
Get PDFThis dissertation consists of three chapters and focuses on the fields of applied econometrics, international trade, the economics of migration, and regional economics.
Chapter 1 demonstrates how applied researchers can develop, select, and validate Shift-Share Instrumental Variables (SSIVs) in their studies. It introduces a novel SSIV Search Method to estimate the causal effect of interprovincial services trade on interprovincial goods trade in Canada. Using the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator within the gravity model, the results reveal a significant causal effect of services trade on goods trade. SSIV variants with lagged disaggregate shocks and shares outperform literature-suggested SSIVs in empirical validity, predictive accuracy, and bias reduction. Machine Learning techniques (such as Gradient Boosting and Random Forest) and Monte Carlo simulations validate the robustness of these instruments.
Chapter 2 examines the bidirectional causality between interprovincial trade and migration within Canada. It develops 80 SSIVs for interprovincial trade and 4 SSIVs for interprovincial migration to address endogeneity. Using the PPML estimator, the analysis shows that trade (both aggregate and disaggregate), particularly services trade, has a stronger influence on migration than migration does on trade. These findings suggest that reducing trade barriers could infl uence internal migration patterns in Canada.
Chapter 3 explores the relationship between trade and migration at both interprovincial and international levels. It introduces modi ed SSIVs as new instruments and nds that both interprovincial and international trade attract migration. The impact of interprovincial trade on interprovincial migration is greater than that of international trade on international migration to Canada. Exports show similar impacts on attracting migrants interprovincially and internationally. Random Forest results demonstrate the superior predictive power of Modified SSIVs compared to traditional ones. This chapter also recommends policies for provinces aiming to attract both interprovincial and international migrants.May 202
Development of chickpea beverages through enzymatic treatments: from rapid visco analyzer to pilot plant production
Get PDFPlant-based beverage production generally involves enzymatic treatments to overcome technological challenges. Thus, this research aimed to evaluate the potential use of the Rapid Visco Analyser (RVA) to simulate pilot plant (PP) conditions and determine the enzyme(s) and enzyme-concentrations to be used in PP for beverage production using chickpea flour. α-Amylase-TA, maltogenase-MA and amyloglucosidase-AMG were tested individually and in combination at three concentrations. Chickpea suspensions with 3% protein, equivalent to milk contribution, were produced at laboratory scale in RVA while simulating PP. Highest viscosity reductions was obtained with the highest enzymatic activity (TA.3 = 1.21 CU/g flour; MA.3 = 0.15 CU/g flour; AMG.3 = 0.69 mg of glucose released/g flour). TA was the most effective in reducing final viscosity and increasing free sugars, particularly combined with TA + MA + AMG. RVA findings were validated in PP-production using TA.3 + MA.3 + AMG.3. Viscosity decreased from 50,697 ± 8,907 cP observed in the control to 4,505 ± 171 cP when using TA.3 + MA.3 + AMG.3. Due to homogenization, the whiteness index was higher for PP beverages (67–71) than for RVA suspensions (65–67). This study demonstrates the potential of using RVA as a tool to optimize enzyme concentrations for chickpea beverage production and the successful scale-up of the process to PP-level.Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI
A graph neural network approach for hierarchical mapping of breast cancer protein communities
No full textAbstract Background Comprehensively mapping the hierarchical structure of breast cancer protein communities and identifying potential biomarkers from them is a promising way for breast cancer research. Existing approaches are subjective and fail to take information from protein sequences into consideration. Deep learning can automatically learn features from protein sequences and protein–protein interactions for hierarchical clustering. Results Using a large amount of publicly available proteomics data, we created a hierarchical tree for breast cancer protein communities using a novel hierarchical graph neural network, with the supervision of gene ontology terms and assistance of a pre-trained deep contextual language model. Then, a group-lasso algorithm was applied to identify protein communities that are under both mutation burden and survival burden, undergo significant alterations when targeted by specific drug molecules, and show cancer-dependent perturbations. The resulting hierarchical map of protein communities shows how gene-level mutations and survival information converge on protein communities at different scales. Internal validity of the model was established through the convergence on BRCA2 as a breast cancer hotspot. Further overlaps with breast cancer cell dependencies revealed SUPT6H and RAD21, along with their respective protein systems, HOST:37 and HOST:861, as potential biomarkers. Using gene-level perturbation data of the HOST:37 and HOST:861 gene sets, three FDA-approved drugs with high therapeutic value were selected as potential treatments to be further evaluated. These drugs include mercaptopurine, pioglitazone, and colchicine. Conclusion The proposed graph neural network approach to analyzing breast cancer protein communities in a hierarchical structure provides a novel perspective on breast cancer prognosis and treatment. By targeting entire gene sets, we were able to evaluate the prognostic and therapeutic value of genes (or gene sets) at different levels, from gene-level to system-level biology. Cancer-specific gene dependencies provide additional context for pinpointing cancer-related systems and drug-induced alterations can highlight potential therapeutic targets. These identified protein communities, in conjunction with other protein communities under strong mutation and survival burdens, can potentially be used as clinical biomarkers for breast cancer
Summary report
No full textIn 2018, the Centre on Aging received funding from the New Horizons for Seniors Program of the Government of Canada for Communication Workshops to Re-frame Aging. The foundational materials that were used to develop the workshop came from the “Gaining Momentum – A Frameworks Communications Toolkit”. The workshops consisted of a presentation about the toolkit, and moved to group activities which helped participants to recognize issues in written materials, and then practice writing short passages incorporating lessons learned from the presentation and resources from the toolkit. All participants received a link to the online toolkit so that they could read through the materials in advance of the workshop, and have the information for future reference
Harnessing ubiquitin variants to combat viral infection in planta
No full textMany notable viruses encode a protease with deubiquitinating (DUB) activity, which is essential for viral replication and evasion of ubiquitin (Ub)-mediated host antiviral responses. The activity of viral DUBs thus promotes viral replication by protecting viral proteins from the Ub-dependent antiviral system in the host and participating directly in virus replication through polyprotein processing. Therefore, viral proteases with DUB activity are potential therapeutic targets for small-molecule antiviral inhibitor compounds.
The recent development of protein-based inhibitors based on variants of Ub (known as UbVs) is promising due to the remarkable target specificity and potency of UbVs for their target DUB. Several cell culture-based studies demonstrated that cellular expression of UbVs suppresses virus replication in animal cells, including the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2. However, the delivery of UbVs to the cytosol of cells as a protein-based therapeutic remains a significant challenge.
Interestingly, several economically important plant species are susceptible to infection by pathogenic viruses that depend on DUB proteases, whose replication could potentially be blocked by transgenic expression of UbVs. This research explored the potential of UbVs as antiviral agents against the plant virus, Turnip Yellow Mosaic Virus (TYMV). A strong binding UbV was identified as explicitly targeting the DUB protease (PRO) and inhibiting the protease and deubiquitinase activity. In addition, Structural studies revealed the mechanism of inhibition and demonstrated the high affinity of the UbV for TYMV PRO. Also, the binding specificities of the UbVs for TYMV PRO and a panel of recombinant plant DUBs from Arabidopsis thaliana demonstrated that none of the UbVs were found to have significant affinity for any of the plant DUBs. To study further, strong binding UbV was introduced to model plant A. thaliana and the infection study was shown to reduce TYMV replication in transgenic plants, suggesting that this approach could be effective against other economically important plant viruses.February 202
A survey of the implementation of participation strategies to enhance inclusive workplaces in the public and private educational systems in Lagos State
Get PDFThis survey examined the implementation of participation strategies to enhance inclusiveness of workplaces in the public and private educational systems in Lagos State, Nigeria for mental health service users. The study employed a multistage sampling technique to select 346 school administrators. The survey was largely quantitative, but three open-ended questions subjected to qualitative analysis were included to add depth to the analysis. Data were analyzed using descriptive, bivariate inferential and multivariate statistical methods. The results described only a minimal adoption of a collaborative strategy in schools. Private and public schools minimally engage in networking and cooperative structures. It was revealed that anti-stigma programs for prevention and intervention were in place in both private and public schools. A discrepancy in the government level of support was observed in private and public schools as governments tend to focus more on public schools. The findings established that information, psychoeducation, advocacy and referral/treatment significantly predicted inclusive outcomes in the two settings. However, school-type was significant in explaining variations in treatment/referral. Public schools have a higher treatment rate than private schools in the three study areas. More so, the hypothesis test results established a statistically significant mean difference between the networking and cooperative structures adopted by private and public schools with public schools dominating. Only the presence of cooperative structures accounted for the difference. Overall, it was found that the implementation of the inclusive framework (collaborative strategy) does not meet the objectives stipulated by the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH, 2019) Human Resources Health (HRH) guidelines because the necessary structures and programs are lacking. There seems to be a power imbalance between mental health agencies and schools in program execution, with schools being a more passive consumer of mental health services as revealed in the qualitative data. It was recommended that both government and citizens have a role to play in fostering inclusion. The study highlighted the need for schools’ active involvement in programs planning for the effectiveness and continuity of this initiative.Educare Trust Fund, Oyo State Chapter Ibadan Nigeria
Endowment Fund, Faculty of Social Work, University of ManitobaFebruary 202
Designing a hybrid online and in-person gym: applying new developments from the pandemic era
No full textThe COVID-19 isolation period and its restrictions on public spaces and physical activities made people use online methods to connect and access workout content. Due to the rise in the popularity of new virtual connections, traditional gym facilities will fail to succeed if they do not evolve to accommodate and support users' different synchronous and asynchronous physical activity routines.
Accordingly, this practicum offers a new model for the interior design of a hybrid online and in-person gym that provides flexible and accessible workout services. The primary users selected for this project are adult women due to their higher interest in hybrid workout methods (Rada & Szabo, 2022) and their vulnerability and exposure to social pressure and negative body image (Gorgan, 2008).
This practicum introduces practical guidelines for a new hybrid gym interior design that supports users' comfort and workout demands. Various research methods were applied, including analyzing relevant literature and precedents, exploring the design of video studio environments used by online trainers, and conducting a small pre- and post-pandemic case study investigation. The project uses the works of theoreticians such as Professor Sally Stone, urban psychologist Ray Oldenburg, researcher Sarah Gorgan, and philosopher and historian Michel Foucault to ensure the functionality and effectiveness of the proposed hybrid gym design.
By incorporating the concepts of hybridity, threshold, third place, body image, and surveillance, the hybrid gym design not only caters to the needs of online and in-person gym members and fitness trainers but also tries to create a welcoming, comfortable and safe interior environment for women with different fitness levels. The incorporation of the concept of threshold focuses on the interior design implications of accommodating both virtual and physical methods of performing workouts. Combining online and in-person models allows hybrid gyms to respond to society's new demands for flexibility in how they access their workouts. Moreover, investigating the concepts of third place, female body image, and surveillance helps the hybrid gym to foster social support, reduce the harmful effects of body image, and thus promote a healthy and active lifestyle among women.February 202
Imagining safety: the peacebuilding potential of theatre for living techniques
Get PDFArtist and peacebuilder Daniel Thau-Eleff has worked on a series of projects with Manitoba Harm Reduction Network between 2019 and 2025. Through this partnership, they have developed a process which begins with theatre workshops and leads to the creation of short videos, featuring and led by the community participants. In this Master’s thesis, Thau-Eleff traces the origins of his work from Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, through Boals’ Theatre of the Oppressed, to Diamond’s Theatre for Living (TFL). He studies the first workshop of a new project, investigating how the TFL techniques he uses in it engage the marginalized community of participants. He finds that the techniques facilitated laughter, then intense silence and focus, encouraged participants to think in the language of metaphor, and made space for a great breadth of participation and depth of conversation. He concludes that five qualities emerged as central to this workshop: collaboration, time and space, safety and connection, meaning-making, and (using Lederach’s phrase) Moral Imagination. Thau-Eleff argues that this process and the qualities it facilitates can contribute significantly to the building of social justice, or positive peace.Donald V. Snider Memorial Fellowship (University of Winnipeg)February 202
Higher alcohols as renewable fuels for compression ignition engines: vaporization and combustion of butanol droplets
Get PDFWith global energy demand on the rise and liquid fossil fuels continuing to dominate the
transportation sector, there is an urgent need for cleaner, renewable alternatives for internal
combustion engines. Among the various candidates, butanol emerges as a promising option for
compression ignition engines due to its high energy content, favorable auto-ignition
characteristics, and material compatibility. Additionally, advancements in production technologies
are improving its economic viability, further strengthening its potential as a renewable liquid fuel.
In compression ignition engines, liquid fuel is injected into the cylinder and undergoes primary
and secondary breakup, forming a spray of fine droplets. In the downstream, more diluted region
of the spray, individual droplets interact with the surrounding hot gases, leading to heating,
evaporation, and eventually combustion. Studying these isolated droplet processes are critical for
developing accurate spray combustion models and optimizing fuel injection strategies to enable
the effective use of renewable fuels in compression ignition engines.
To this end, the present research investigates the evaporation and combustion characteristics of
single butanol droplets under near engine-like conditions. A fan-stirred chamber is employed to
generate a homogeneous and isotropic turbulent environment with a nearly zero mean velocity. A
comprehensive parametric study is conducted to examine the influence of key parameters,
including droplet size, ambient pressure, turbulence intensity, and ambient gas composition.
Additionally, the results for butanol are compared with those of conventional hydrocarbon fuels
to assess the role of fuel type. These investigations are presented across four main chapters, each
based on a published manuscript.February 202