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Implementation Evaluation of a Critical Online Resource Evaluation (CORE) Program for High School Students in Quebec
Get PDFBeing literate in the 21st century goes beyond the abilities of reading and writing; new skills and methods are required to evaluate the credibility of the information we find online. It is frequently assumed that young students, the so-called 'digital born generation,’ can discern credible information from mis/dis information or biased information; however, evidence suggests they have limited critical evaluation skills. Aware of this gap, researchers from the University of Concordia and practitioners in three high schools in Quebec implemented a Critical Online Resource Evaluation (CORE) intervention program to improve students' ability to evaluate online resources. With the vision to scale up the intervention in Canada and worldwide, it was essential to understand how the program was implemented and whether it was delivered as intended by the research team, to make informed decisions about modifications, adaptations, or refinements to improve the program's effectiveness.
Implementation fidelity was evaluated using a pragmatic mixed methods design, concurrently collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from three sources: teachers, researchers and students. The CORE intervention was implemented with high fidelity from both teacher and researcher perspectives (79.9%, 89.0% ). While teachers adhered to the program content as planned, they adapted it to meet their classroom context. Teachers conducted the program with a high level of quality, with a mean score of 90.3% from the teacher’s perspective and 96.7% from the researcher’s perspective, suggesting they were well-prepared and confident. Students' engagement and motivation varied from the different views. From the teacher's perspective, students were highly engaged, with a mean score of 80.9%, while researchers and students perceived they were moderately engaged and motivated (77%, 69.6%). Teachers, researchers, and students concurred that the program was long, complex and the COVID topic fatiguing. Finally, the intervention highlighted group work and interactivity as the most engaging and motivating factors
Synthesis of Reductive Nanogels Cross-linked with Polyanions to Mimic Oligonucleotides
Get PDFGene therapy with nucleic acid-based therapeutic agents has emerged as a promising strategy to treat various human diseases. However, the efficient delivery of nucleic acids faces a critical challenge as they are susceptible to hydrolytic and enzymatic degradation during blood circulation and in the body. The conventional delivery strategy for nucleic acids involves cationic polymers which bind with the anionic phosphate groups of the nucleic acid by ionic interaction to form polyplexes. These polyplexes are designed for effective endosomal escape of the nucleic acids through the proton-sponge effect, leading to release of their cargos, resulting in excellent gene transfection. However, the polyplex-based nanocarriers present critical drawbacks including cytotoxicity of cationic polymers, the degradation of nucleic acids in polyplexes, and the propensity to aggregate with serum proteins during blood circulation.
My MSc thesis focuses on the exploration of a new paradigm for nucleic acid delivery which explores the design of reactive, but neutral hydrophilic copolymers and the use of nucleic acids as therapeutics and cross-linkers. A poly(phosphonic acid) with terminal thiol groups to mimic oligonucleotides is synthesized by reversible addition fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization. Consequently, the poly(phosphonic acid) is covalently conjugated with a water-soluble random copolymer bearing pendant pyridyl-disulfide functional groups through a thiol-disulfide exchange reaction in aqueous solution, resulting in the formation of cross-linked nanogels through the formation of new disulfide bonds. Consequently, the reductive cleavage of the disulfide linkages in the fabricated nanogels has the potential to prompt the detachment of therapeutic nucleic acids from the nanogel cores. The enhanced release of nucleic acids through degradation (or destabilization) of nanogel cores can occur in the presence of glutathione inside cells
Transgression et pratiques préfiguratives, un travail de recherche-création sur le cinéma et la vidéo queer/trans*
Get PDFCe projet de recherche-création interroge le potentiel transgressif du cinéma et de la vidéo queer/trans* indépendants, artisanaux et non-industriels. Le projet est articulé autour de trois méthodes : l’entrevue, l’étude de la production et l’autoethnographie. J’ai réalisé cinq entretiens filmés avec des artistes, cinéastes ou vidéastes que j’associe à la Nouvelle Vague de cinéma trans*. Je poserai la question : l’étude de la production d’œuvres cinématographiques et vidéo queer/trans* indépendantes, artisanales et non-industrielles peut-elle révéler des tactiques de luttes participant à la création de pratiques et de politiques préfiguratives ? J’inscris les cinéastes et films étudiés à l’intérieur du concept d’activisme médiatique, puisqu’iels sont critiques de l’industrie culturelle dominante. Cette recherche utilise les études trans* et les théories queer afin de réfléchir aux processus de formation, au savoir expérientiel, à l’agencement ou à l’assemblage de référents et de significations dans des espaces transitifs où les frontières sont floues et en mouvement.
La création d’une boîte à outil incluant une ébauche de trois capsules vidéo me permettra de rendre visible les réflexions et pratiques préfiguratives développées par les cinéastes. J’analyserai des pratiques esthétiques, les représentations, une approche intersectionnelle des rapports de pouvoir et des réflexions entourant l’éthique et les pratiques de soins des cinéastes. J’utiliserai l’autoethnographie, afin d’analyser les processus de production des capsules vidéo et la création d’un objet médiatique
Towards the photo-triggered release of antimicrobial peptide GL13K tethered to phospholipid bilayer delivery vehicles
Get PDFDeaths due to antimicrobial-resistant bacteria have surpassed those caused by HIV/AIDS and malaria. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a promising solution, although their delivery has challenges including poor proteolytic stability and the need for repeated high, localised dosages, traditionally restricting them to topical applications. We explore the use of biocompatible phospholipid bilayers as a platform from which to deliver the antimicrobial peptide GL13K with spaciotemporal control.
In this thesis, the initial focus pertains to the design of a photocleavable GL13K nanoplatform, anchoring peptide to the liposomal surface, as each constituent component had to be considered and many synthesized. GL13K was synthesized with both an o-nitrobenzyl photolabile group and an azide moiety selectively added to the central lysine residue. The nanoplatform is designed such that the bilayer will have an exposed alkyne group. This enables the peptide to be tethered to the phospholipid bilayer using a copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition click reaction, post liposome fabrication. Once the platform was designed, synthesized, and the liposomal vehicles shown to be stable, successful tethering of the peptide was analysed and the GL13K able to adopt the bactericidal β-strand conformation, but not β-sheets when tethered to the liposomal surface. The nanoplatform was shown to have the capability of delivering bactericidal dosages of the AMP justifying future development towards an application in treating chronic wounds infected by persistent biofilm-forming bacteria
Situating Riaz Shahid's Zerqa (1969) in a Palestinian Cinematic Archive
Get PDFABSTRACT
Situating Riaz Shahid's Zerqa (1969) in a Palestinian Cinematic Archive
Saba Fatima Haider, Ph.D.
Concordia University, 2023
This research-creation doctoral project lies at the intersections of visual anthropology, cultural studies, film studies, and translation practice. This study presents the findings of an exploration of the Pakistani feature film Zerqa (1969), by Pakistani director Riaz Shahid (d. 1972), as a film that has until recently not been the subject of scholarly and artistic inquiry and warrants investigation into its lesser known history as a revolutionary Palestinian film. This aspect of the film’s identity is revealed through my study of archival sources, and inspired this project’s aims: to initiate a conversation between (trans)national cinemas and disciplines about Zerqa. An Urdu-language feature film set in an imagined Palestine, Zerqa tells the story of the creation of Israel and the rise of the Palestinian armed struggle. The film presented a direct call to action into Palestinian armed struggle and upon its release in 1969, the director made explicit the film’s ideological and translocal entanglements with the aims of the PLO and specifically Fatah. As such, it warrants exploration by Palestinian cinema scholars as an early PLO film and possibly the first feature narrative film that told the story of Palestinian displacement and the rise of the armed struggle. Surfacing that dimension of Zerqa can situate it beyond the Pakistani cinema archive but also into the canon of PLO films and Palestinian political cinema — bringing a new translocal dimension to understanding Palestinian cinema beyond language and geography.
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The film was an unprecedented commercial hit upon its release in 1969, and played cinemas across Pakistan for over 100 weeks straight. Yet since then, Zerqa almost entirely disappeared from the film archive. A key goal of this project was to translate the film into English to bring it into wider dialogue. My analysis links vastly different political contexts and cinema histories, of Palestine and Pakistan. It also illuminates complicated relationships between separate but closely related disciplines and archives. The film speaks to two cultural and political spheres: Marxist productions in Pakistani popular culture in the 1960s and 70s, and the PLO’s early cultural activities and transnational relationships after 1967 and into the 70s
Point d'ironie point d'orgue, une installation chorale
Get PDFMa pratique s’est déployée à partir de l’idée de la limite ces dernières années. Limites entre les corps, par le contenant, puis limites des matériaux et limites incarnées par les fenêtres, les volets et la mort. L’attrait de ce sujet réside pour moi dans le constat du rapport fondamental aux limites (et/ou leur absence) dans la perception des contours d’un individu et, plus largement, du rapport à la limite caractéristique de notre époque qui entraîne, dans nos sociétés occidentales actuelles, quantité de soulèvements et de questionnements sociaux et environnementaux. De manière plus personnelle, la limite constitue aussi pour moi un point focal dans le langage et dans l’abondance d’informations : elle est le lieu où je m’oppose, où je m’appose et me repose. Un lieu où je peux penser, me positionner : où l’articulation et les réflexions naturellement s’arrêtent et se relancent. C’est un seuil et une gardienne du rythme qui tranche dans la longue et touffue musique intuitive ou discursive générale. Le corpus que je présente comme projet de maîtrise est la prolongation de cette réflexion. Par le biais de la limite intrinsèque au corps, la mort, j’en suis venue à me référer entre autres visuellement au sous-sol, où nous enterrons les corps, à la sublimation de la matière vers l’éther qui se produit dans la mort comme dans la voix ou la musique, et à certains rituels funéraires. Par ailleurs en perte de popularité, le sacré que ces rituels honorent et les postures sociales qui déterminent la nature des objets qui servent ce langage culturel m’ont particulièrement intéressée.
À travers la production de pièces, je mesure aussi la limite constituée et incarnée par les matériaux et le résidu de la pensée qu’ils incarnent. Par l’utilisation d’objets usagés que je transforme et complète à l’aide de d’autres objets, usagés ou fabriqués, je continue ce qui existe, je réorganise la contrainte, je négocie. Je constitue un langage à partir de, par conviction que le mouvement naturel de la vie et de l’évolution procède par continuité, mais aussi parce que l’époque (et moi-même) m’exhorte de considérer l’impact environnemental et spatial de mes gestes et de mon expression.
La question de la limite prend aussi la forme d’une zone limitrophe, membrane poreuse, entre matière, images et langue/langage. Toujours en jeu dans ma pratique, ces derniers rappellent, dans l’ordre, le réel, l’imaginaire et le symbolique, liés par le nœud borroméen dans la théorie psychanalytique lacanienne ; mais c’est d’abord par la sensation d’une union malgré tout divisée en moi et de fréquentes collisions perceptuelles dans ma relation au monde que j’ai identifié cet aspect central, la théorie m’ayant donné des pistes pour le réfléchir
Career Activity: Discussing Midlife Transitions as Strategic Activity Systems
Get PDFThis study explored midlife career transition through facilitated dialogues. Transition seekers were interviewed to elicit systemic influences that shaped their career paths, instructed on active listening, then engaged in co-interviewing relatable completers. To capture changes in thinking, all participants wrote Future Career Autobiographies before and after interviews. Their career stories and dialogues were drafted as rich case studies, coded for concepts, then explained as evolving activity systems to highlight their changing strategies over time. In dialogues, participants who disclosed career dilemmas and related to each other had more interactions and problem-solving. Those who shared emotional losses had more relating, empathy and laughter. Without such experiences, seekers relied on probing, labelling and asking for negative stories. Completers expanded their roles with empathy, explaining, problem-solving and offering further contact. Seekers and completers who shared emotional stories became more confident or reconsidered their futures. Overall, participants shifted from passive desires for harmony to wanting colleagues for career help. They expressed new options for learning, collaboration, and kinds of work, and insights about self-blame, force-fitting, trust, building on the past, and talking with others. Participants had sought career change when they lacked balance between meeting needs versus working for others. Male seekers sought sensations and identity. Female completers sought to care for others and themselves. Career dissatisfaction related to exclusion; defining work narrowly in terms of tasks; passively relying on others for opportunities; expecting to trust or be trusted without evidence; acting without exploring widely or monitoring for changing circumstances; interpreting challenges as lack of belonging; and submitting to circumstances and the priorities of others. In contrast, career satisfaction related to belonging; performing according to personal values; and feeling encouragement despite anxiety. Satisfying transitions used training to combine enjoyed skills with a long-term interest, or experiences with a pressing problem. Helpful strategies included broadening scope to create opportunities and expand responsibility; surveying contacts to enter desired roles and overcome rejections; engaging with chance to create connections, explore options, practise skills and demonstrate ability; embracing personal development to overcome challenges; and pursuing change purposefully according to values. Guidance provided to conduct and analyze such dialogues
Design of Reconfigurable Interfaces for Energy Efficient Nanophotonic Interconnects
Get PDFMany core architectures have become instrumental in addressing the ever-increasing demand for computational power in modern computing systems. As these architectures scale to accommodate an ever-growing number of processing cores on a single chip, the need for efficient data movement within and between these cores has become a crucial concern. As chip designs become more complex, traditional electrical interconnects face limitations due to increasing power dissipation, signal integrity issues, and bandwidth constraints. Short-reach nanophotonic interconnects offer a promising alternative to overcome these challenges. Photonic Networks on Chips (PNoCs) have been demonstrated to provide high bandwidth with low latencies and low data-dependent power. However, large-scale adoption of PNoC is hampered by laser power overheads, thermal tuning, and electrical optical conversion. To meet the target bit error rate (BER), the laser source must output enough optical power to overcome the optical channel loss and limited receiver sensitivity for the silicon photonic links. In addition, several parallel applications, such as multimedia processing, have built-in tolerances for inaccuracies that allow soft errors on a chip, such as bit flips. However, there is no method to design energy efficient optical links. This thesis investigates the design of reconfigurable nanophotonic interconnects and provides a
reduction method to reduce the control complexity of the receivers and transmitters
Measuring and Improving the Security Postures of Smart Grid Substations Against Cyber Attacks
No full textSubstations, which are utilized to bring voltage levels from high-voltage to low-voltage while ensuring monitoring, protection, and control, are critical components of power systems. Digital substations, in which the operation is managed between intelligent electronic devices (IED), are utilized in the smart grid. Compromising those substations can lead to major consequences, such as transmission line failures or blackouts. Since cyber-attacks against substations can lead to serious physical consequences, securing substations requires quantitative security metrics that consider the cyber and physical aspects of attacks. The goal of designing security metrics is to measure how defense-ready critical systems are so that attacks can be prevented from succeeding in the first place, rather than being detected in later stages. This Ph.D. thesis aims to develop security metrics for substations, provide a framework for improving their security posture, which is measured with the developed security metrics, and provide an online security monitoring framework. More concretely, the first chapter provides a literature review on threat models and security metrics in the smart grid. Consequently, two security metrics are defined to measure how well redundancy is designed from a security perspective. The effectiveness of those metrics is assessed via simulations conducted using realistic attack graph models. After that, three security metrics are provided to measure the security postures of substations concerning supply chain attacks, and their effectiveness is assessed via simulations. Substations may contain devices from different vendors which may be more or less trustworthy. Based on that, measuring the security postures of substations against supply chain attacks is important. Then, a hardening framework is developed to improve the security postures of substations with respect to supply chain attacks. This framework considers supply chain-related and non-supply chain-related hardening options for finding optimal ways to improve the security postures of substations. The effectiveness of the designed framework is experimented with using realistic scenarios. Lastly, an online security monitoring framework which first generates threat models and then enhances them according to ongoing instances of attacks is provided. This framework first generates threat models based on the static configuration. After that, the generated models are updated based on information about ongoing instances of attacks obtained from system logs. Experiment results highlight that the designed framework scales well and has a reasonable execution time. Finally, even though securing substations is the main focus of this thesis, quantitative security metrics and tools defined in this thesis can potentially be used for other critical systems such as microgrids
Exploring Instructors’ Experiences with Instructional Design Supported Course Design in Higher Education: An Analysis of Three Cases Based on Activity Theory.
Get PDFDesigning high-quality online courses requires specialized skills and knowledge that instructors may not possess alone. To address this challenge, universities employ instructional design professionals to support course design and development. However, it is important to recognize that instructors are significant in higher education course design.
This case study explores instructors’ experiences during the instructional design supported online course designing process. Fifteen instructors from two Canadian universities were interviewed. Three cases were selected based on the ID support modes to allow across-case comparison.
The key findings revealed that instructors designing online courses did not explicitly follow standard ID models. Instead, they prioritized adapting existing course content to suit their needs. When working with IDs, instructors valued ID’s expertise in course formatting and structures, and customized support, offering instructional strategies and digital tools for optimized online courses. Yet how often instructors implemented ID suggestions and practices was influenced by several other factors, including course goals, time constraints, previous teaching experiences, design task complexity, and ID support availability. The study also identified challenges in the current course design process, including balancing instructors’ workloads and desired effective course design, building pedagogical content knowledge in online course design and teaching, and bridging the gap between design needs and available ID supports.
This study provided an opportunity to understand ID-supported course design and how ID suggestions were implemented from instructors’ viewpoints. The results provided insights on how to improve ID support in higher education and help in better understanding the professional identity of instructional designers