Settling in Quebec: Exploring the Latin-Americans' skilled worker's personal projects

Every year, close to 63% of immigrants settling Quebec are skilled workers. Quebec's migration policies select skilled workers based on their academic leve, language skills, professional experience, and other qualifications. However, the goals, activities, and actions skilled immigrants must undertake to settle in Quebec have not been adequately researched.&nbsp

Settling in Quebec: Exploring the Latin-Americans' skilled worker's personal projects

Every year, close to 63% of immigrants settling Quebec are skilled workers. Quebec's migration policies select skilled workers based on their academic leve, language skills, professional experience, and other qualifications. However, the goals, activities, and actions skilled immigrants must undertake to settle in Quebec have not been adequately researched.&nbsp

Questionnaire sur les structures relationnelles

Il s'agit de la adaptation et la validation de la version française du Experiences in Close Relationship - Relationship Structures Questionnaire (ECR-RS). \ud \ud This is the French adaptation and validation of the Experiences in Close Relationship - Relationship Structures Questionnaire (ECR-RS)

The optimization of thin film p-CuO/n-ZnO heterostructures for use in selective gas detection

Since bulk p-CuO/n-ZnO heterocontacts were first proposed for gas detection, rapid development has taken place in improving the overall functionality of these structures. While bulk heterocontacts have been shown to exhibit desirable sensitivity and selectivity characteristics, these devices suffer from innate diffusion and ZnO/CuO connectivity drawbacks that limit their effective use. To address these issues, thin film p-CuO/n-ZnO heterostructures have been fabricated via wet chemical (sol-gel) processes so as to examine their potential use in reducing environments. Individual ZnO and CuO sol-gel processes have been developed with the goal of optimizing thin film porosity, crystallinity, and preferred orientation for enhanced gas sensing capability. Particular attention was given to the effects of solution chemistry and pyrolysis temperature on desired thin film properties. For ZnO, control over film microstructure was attained through fabrication modes based on the solvents 2-methoxyethanol (MOE) and dimethylformamide (DMF). Monoethanolamine (MEA) was employed as a chelating ligand in specific solutions. Optimum preferred orientation for DMF-based ZnO films was seen to exist at a solution chemistry of 5% water and a 1:1 molar ratio of Zn to MEA. An increase in the drying temperature yielded a monotonic decrease in the electrical resistivity of these films. For the MOE-based process, a lowering of the pyrolysis temperature led to an increase in ZnO film porosity. CuO thin films were deposited through a solution route based on isopropanol. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the CuO films to possess a level of porosity much higher than that seen in the ZnO films. Thin film p-CuO/n-ZnO heterostructures were fabricated in two configurations; ZnO on CuO (ZnO/CuO) and CuO on ZnO (CuO/ZnO). The results of current-voltage (I-V) tests showed the CuO/ZnO structures to display enhanced sensing characteristics to 4000 ppm hydrogen when compared to the ZnO/CuO structures. This finding was attributed to the inherently high porosity of the top CuO layer which in turn allowed for improved gas diffusion to the heterostructure interface. The phase equilibrium between CuO and ZnO exhibits limited solubility. As such, a novel microstructure formed by combining CuO and ZnO precursors has been explored with the expectation that the films will phase separate. For the deposited films, a variance in both the annealing temperature and time was found to yield a microstructure comprised of individual ZnO and CuO grains. The co-existence of these two structures was confirmed through Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). It is expected that the high level of connectivity between the ZnO and CuO along with negligible barriers to gas diffusion will lead to superior sensing characteristics

Exploring nonconscious behaviour change interventions on mobile devices

Modern cognitive psychology theories such as Dual Process Theory suggest that the source of much habitual behaviour is the nonconscious. Despite this, most behaviour change interventions using technology (BCITs) focus on conscious strategies to change people’s behaviour. We propose an alternative avenue of research, which focuses on understanding how best to directly target the nonconscious via mobile devices in real-life situations to achieve behaviour change

Searching compassion in a crowd: Evaluation of a novel compassion visual search task to reduce self-criticism

Background: The ability to appropriately process social stimuli such as facial expressions is crucial to emotion regulation and the maintenance of supportive interpersonal relationships. Cognitive Bias Modification Tasks (CBMTs) are being investigated as potential interventions for those who struggle to appropriately process social stimuli. Aims: Two studies aimed to assess the effectiveness of a novel computerised ‘Compassion Game’ CBMT compared with a validated ‘Self-Esteem Game’ (Study 1, n=66) and a Neutral Control Game (Study 2, n=59). Method: In each study, baseline, post-task, and one-month follow-up measures of 3 self-reported forms of self-criticism (inadequate self, hated self, and self-reassurance) were used to examine the benefits of two weeks’ attentional training. Results: Analyses show that the novel Compassion Game significantly reduced inadequate self-criticism at post and one-month follow-up (Studies 1 and 2) and increased self-reassurance (Study 1). Results also show that the Self-Esteem (Study 1) and the Neutral Control Game (Study 2), which also used social stimuli, produced reductions in inadequate self-criticism. Conclusions: Results suggest that training one’s attention toward social stimuli can improve inadequate self-criticism. Implications for the use of compassionate stimuli in such CBMTs are discussed.Leverhulme Trus

The buffering effects of rejectioninhibiting attentional training on social and performance threat among adult students.

a b s t r a c t Concerns about social rejection can be disruptive in an academic context. We set out to train a positive cognitive habit that would buffer against social and performance threat thereby making students less vulnerable and more resilient to rejection. Participants from adult education centers (n = 150) were first trained to inhibit rejection using a specially designed computer task, and were then taken through a rejection and failure manipulation. Results showed that of the most vulnerable participants with low explicit and low implicit self-esteem, those in the experimental condition exhibited significantly less vigilance for rejection compared to their counterparts in the control condition. The attentional training also made participants with low explicit self-esteem feel less rejected after a rejection manipulation and less willing to persevere on a virtually impossible anagrams task. Finally, participants in the experimental condition reported less interfering thoughts of being rejected while completing the anagrams task, and overall higher state self-esteem after having been rejected and experiencing failure. The results show that training positive social cognitions can have beneficial self-regulatory outcomes in response to social and performance threat in a school context

Facial expressions depicting compassionate and critical emotions: the development and validation of a new emotional face stimulus set

Attachment with altruistic others requires the ability to appropriately process affiliative and kind facial cues. Yet there is no stimulus set available to investigate such processes. Here, we developed a stimulus set depicting compassionate and critical facial expressions, and validated its effectiveness using well-established visual-probe methodology. In Study 1, 62 participants rated photographs of actors displaying compassionate/kind and critical faces on strength of emotion type. This produced a new stimulus set based on N = 31 actors, whose facial expressions were reliably distinguished as compassionate, critical and neutral. In Study 2, 70 participants completed a visual-probe task measuring attentional orientation to critical and compassionate/kind faces. This revealed that participants lower in self-criticism demonstrated enhanced attention to compassionate/kind faces whereas those higher in self-criticism showed no bias. To sum, the new stimulus set produced interpretable findings using visual-probe methodology and is the first to include higher order, complex positive affect displays

A Closer Look at Self-Esteem, Perceived Social Support, and Coping Strategy: A Prospective Study of Depressive Symptomatology Across the Transition to College

The first year of college is a significant life transition, which is often characterized by stress and may contribute to the development or exacerbation of depressive symptoms. Due to the considerable negative outcomes that are associated with depressive symptoms across the lifespan, it is important to understand the mechanisms and pathways through which depressive symptoms arise. This prospective study examines the mediating and moderating roles of perceived social support and disengagement coping on the association between self-esteem and depressive symptomatology in a sample of 1,118 first-year college students. Results of longitudinal cross-lagged path analyses indicate that self-esteem predicts depressive symptomatology via perceived social support and disengagement coping. The association between self-esteem and perceived social support appear to be bidirectional, in that level of self-esteem predicts perceived social support, and vice versa. Furthermore, disengagement coping was found to moderate the effect of self-esteem on depressive symptomatology, in that increased levels of disengagement coping led to greater depressive symptoms within the context of both high and low self-esteem. However, this pattern was not observed at lower levels of disengagement coping, which indicates high levels of disengagement coping as a particular risk factor for depressive symptomatology, diminishing the advantage of high self-esteem