Likely Outcomes in the National Debate over Greenhouse Gas Emissions -a public policy analysis

In 2005, the Convention on Climate Change took many conceptual ideas regarding greenhouse gas emissions, best practices, and national environmental policies and committed the 192 member countries to legislation known as the Kyoto Protocol. The United States signed this protocol but it was not ratified, and therefore the United States need not and has not, been bound to the protocol. However, the new administration, under President Barack Obama, promises the United States is now ready to assume leadership in tackling climate change. In December of this year, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark to draft a new Kyoto Protocol. In order for the United States to fulfill its promise of assuming leadership, it will need to demonstrate federal effort to battle climate change. The question arises, what will the administration do to battle climate change and how will it affect politics, corporations, and consumers? The aim of my project is to forecast the likely outcomes of greenhouse gas regulation by using the MacRae and Wilde policy analysis process. My project focuses on comparing and analyzing a cap and trade method vs. implementing a carbon tax or command and control approach. Methods of my research include investigating proposed legislation, lobbying groups, non-profit organizations, and current events and articles. This project focuses heavily on personal interviews with experts in the field of greenhouse gas regulation

Connect or Protect: The Impact of Ghosting on Potential Partner Perception and Pursuit

As an increasing number of individuals seek meaningful connections in online dating, it is important to understand how online dating users’ perceptions and behaviors vary because of contact being terminated with them without warning (i.e., being ghosted) and their regulatory focus. Research on how being ghosted affects users’ expectations and pursuit of potential partners is limited, despite ghosting being a pervasive online dating experience. Also, the role of users’ motivational systems of goal pursuit, namely regulatory focus (promotion focus: motive to affiliate/connect with others, prevention focus: motive to avoid rejection/protect the self), on users’ expectations and pursuit of potential partners on online dating platforms (ODPs) has yet to be explored in this context. To address these gaps in the literature, I conducted one online non-experimental survey (Study 1) and two online experiments (Studies 2 and 3). In all three studies, regulatory focus was measured in terms of chronic regulatory focus with the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ; Higgins et al. 2001) and relationship regulatory focus with the Regulatory Focus in Relationships Scale (Winterheld & Simpson, 2011). In Study 1, 145 users (81 men, 63 women, 1 non-binary) reported on their regulatory focus before indicating their anticipated connection success and change to potential partner pursuit after a variety of hypothetical ghosting experiences. Anticipated connection success and pursuit of partners decreased for being ghosted following an in-person date (with or without sex) relative to being ghosted following messaging on the ODP. Also, both chronic and relationship promotion focus were positively associated with anticipated connection success and relationship prevention focus was negatively associated with pursuit in potential partners after imagining being ghosted. In Study 2, 178 users (121 men, 54 women, 1 non-binary, 1 gender fluid) completed the regulatory focus measures used in Study 1 before imagining being ghosted or mutually terminating contact with a potential partner. A moderated mediation model was predicted. Specifically, it was expected that, within the ghosting condition, those relatively high (versus low) in promotion focus would have higher anticipated and importance of connection success, leading to more potential partner pursuit. It was also expected that those relatively high (versus low) in prevention focus would have lower anticipated and importance of connection success, leading to less potential partner pursuit. The predicted model was partially supported such that, after imagining being ghosted, those high in relationship prevention focus rated finding meaningful connections as less important, leading to less desire for partner pursuit. However, regardless of condition, those high (versus low) in relationship promotion focus had higher anticipated and importance of connection success, leading to more desire for partner pursuit. In Study 3, regulatory focus was not only measured, but manipulated by inducing participants into a promotion focus (i.e., listing ways to achieve online dating goals) or prevention focus (i.e., listing ways to avoid failure in online dating goals) after imagining being ghosted or mutually terminating contact with a potential partner. There were 162 users (91 men, 69 women, 2 non-binary) who completed the study. The association between regulatory focus induction and anticipated connection success only approached significance, but higher anticipated connection success was associated with more desire to pursue potential partners. These results extend findings on how regulatory focus impacts relationship processes to the context of ghosting on online dating platforms. Studies 2 and 3 are also some of the first studies to test the causal link between being ghosted and online daters’ desire to pursue potential partners. The results suggest that people’s motives may alter the way that they respond to being ghosted, and how they continue to engage in online dating for potential partner pursuit

A Classroom Activity for Teaching Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

In two studies, we demonstrate an engaging classroom activity that facilitates student learning about Kohlberg’s theory of moral development by using digital resources to foster active, experiential learning. In addition to hearing a standard lecture about moral development, students watched a video of a morally provocative incident, then worked in small groups to classify user comments posted in response to the video according to Kohlberg’s six stages. Students in both studies found the activity enjoyable and useful. Moreover, students’ scores on a moral development quiz improved after completing the activity (Study 1), and students who completed the activity in addition to receiving a lecture performed better on the quiz than students who received lecture alone (Study 2)

Health Care for Mitochondrial Disorders in Canada: A Survey of Physicians

Background: An improved understanding of diagnostic and treatment practices for patients with rare primary mitochondrial disorders can support benchmarking against guidelines and establish priorities for evaluative research. We aimed to describe physician care for patients with mitochondrial diseases in Canada, including variation in care. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of Canadian physicians involved in the diagnosis and/or ongoing care of patients with mitochondrial diseases. We used snowball sampling to identify potentially eligible participants, who were contacted by mail up to five times and invited to complete a questionnaire by mail or internet. The questionnaire addressed: personal experience in providing care for mitochondrial disorders; diagnostic and treatment practices; challenges in accessing tests or treatments; and views regarding research priorities. Results: We received 58 survey responses (52% response rate). Most respondents (83%) reported spending 20% or less of their clinical practice time caring for patients with mitochondrial disorders. We identified important variation in diagnostic care, although assessments frequently reported as diagnostically helpful (e.g., brain magnetic resonance imaging, MRI/MR spectroscopy) were also recommended in published guidelines. Approximately half (49%) of participants would recommend mitochondrial cocktails for all or most patients, but we identified variation in responses regarding specific vitamins and cofactors. A majority of physicians recommended studies on the development of effective therapies as the top research priority. Conclusions: While Canadian physicians\u27 views about diagnostic care and disease management are aligned with published recommendations, important variations in care reflect persistent areas of uncertainty and a need for empirical evidence to support and update standard protocols

Outcomes in pediatric studies of medium-chain acyl-coA dehydrogenase (MCAD) deficiency and phenylketonuria (PKU): a review.

BACKGROUND: Inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs) are a group of individually rare single-gene diseases. For many IMDs, there is a paucity of high-quality evidence that evaluates the effectiveness of clinical interventions. Clinical effectiveness trials of IMD interventions could be supported through the development of core outcome sets (COSs), a recommended minimum set of standardized, high-quality outcomes and associated outcome measurement instruments to be incorporated by all trials in an area of study. We began the process of establishing pediatric COSs for two IMDs, medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (MCAD) deficiency and phenylketonuria (PKU), by reviewing published literature to describe outcomes reported by authors, identify heterogeneity in outcomes across studies, and assemble a candidate list of outcomes. METHODS: We used a comprehensive search strategy to identify primary studies and guidelines relevant to children with MCAD deficiency and PKU, extracting study characteristics and outcome information from eligible studies including outcome measurement instruments for select outcomes. Informed by an established framework and a previously published pediatric COS, outcomes were grouped into five, mutually-exclusive, a priori core areas: growth and development, life impact, pathophysiological manifestations, resource use, and death. RESULTS: For MCAD deficiency, we identified 83 outcomes from 52 articles. The most frequently represented core area was pathophysiological manifestations, with 33 outcomes reported in 29/52 articles (56%). Death was the most frequently reported outcome. One-third of outcomes were reported by a single study. The most diversely measured outcome was cognition and intelligence/IQ for which eight unique measurement instruments were reported among 14 articles. For PKU, we identified 97 outcomes from 343 articles. The most frequently represented core area was pathophysiological manifestations with 31 outcomes reported in 281/343 articles (82%). Phenylalanine concentration was the most frequently reported outcome. Sixteen percent of outcomes were reported by a single study. Similar to MCAD deficiency, the most diversely measured PKU outcome was cognition and intelligence/IQ with 39 different instruments reported among 82 articles. CONCLUSIONS: Heterogeneity of reported outcomes and outcome measurement instruments across published studies for both MCAD deficiency and PKU highlights the need for COSs for these diseases, to promote the use of meaningful outcomes and facilitate comparisons across studies

Abstracts from the NIHR INVOLVE Conference 2017

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The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Over the Hill and Under the Radar: Participation in Physical Activity of Older People at the St. George Campus of the University of Toronto

An examination of data from 21 older members of the University community aged 59 and older, including those who do and those who do not use the campus gyms, and six athletic programming staff from the two facilities to attempt to understand how older adults choose to negotiate their physical activity as they age. The study demonstrates that those respondents most comfortable in the gym spaces in the university setting are those who have occupied those spaces over many years, or those who have been habituated to gym culture through their activities outside the university setting. Using the ’mask of ageing theory’ in combination with Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital and field, this study is an attempt to understand the individual and cultural practices that older adults engage in to manage their physical activities at the University, their other activities outside, as well as the performative aspects of their engagement.MAS