Coping with loss: A qualitative study of the experience of sibling bereavement in young adulthood

Existing literature in the area of bereavement as it pertains to young persons focuses primarily upon the death of a parent, and the age groups most studied are either children or adolescents. The goal of this thesis project, therefore, has been to develop an in-depth understanding of the experience of sibling bereavement in young adulthood, looking at factors that both helped and hindered effective coping. Specifically, in-depth interviews with 7 young women who had suffered the loss of a sister or brother while between the ages of 18 and 30 were conducted in an effort to shed light on this type of loss during this stage in life. Participants shared that the loss of the sibling caused changes in their family dynamics, alterations in their physical health and psychological well-being, modified their academic or occupational goals, and transformed many of their social bonds. Helpful methods of coping with the sibling’s absence included using the funeral as a means of gaining closure, remaining emotionally isolated immediately after the death, drawing on social support as time passed, striving to maintain a symbolic connection with the deceased sister or brother, and keeping active. Participants discussed denying the loss and relying on the “wrong” people for support as unhelpful ways of coping. Knowing that the sibling died without pain, being surrounded by understanding people, and the structure provided by academic pursuits were cited as having been external factors that facilitated coping, while negative circumstances around the death event, issues within the family, feeling disconnected from others, experiencing pressure from work, dealing with constant reminders of the loss, and not having the severity of sibling loss acknowledged by society were described as outside influences that hindered effective coping. Based on these findings, a theory of sibling bereavement in young adulthood is advanced, and potential ways of providing support to such individuals are discussed

To \u27brown it up\u27 or \u27bring down the brown\u27: Identity and strategy in second-generation, South Asian-Canadian youth

There is a growing body of research examining how ethnicity and race are implicated in identity development among ethno-racially diverse youth. Much of this research has focused on newcomer youth, resulting in a limited understanding of the particular challenges experienced by those have spent the majority of their lives in multicultural Canada. Furthermore, most of this research has portrayed identity as a static property, and youth as rather passive in the acquisition and expression of their identities. The current study explored the complex and dynamic ways that racialized youth create and recreate identities within the various social environments they participate. Specifically, this dissertation presents findings from research looking at identity in second-generation, South Asian Canadians. A grounded theory approach, with a corresponding qualitative methodology, was used to understand the personal, social, and situated identities of 26 young South Asian Canadian women and men (aged 18-25). Results from in-depth interviews with participants suggest that these youth are influenced both by a distinct ethnic/racial history, and a personal history grounded in Canadian experiences. These identities are multidimensional, flexible constructs that are created and re-created as youth interact with others around them. Youth are experts in assessing a particular situation, determining the most appropriate self\u27 to foreground from an array of identity choices, and executing expressions of identity that are likely to produce the outcome most in their favour. Youth, then, actively negotiate various aspects of their environments and by drawing on their identity capital , make deliberate, strategic choices about whether to do South Asian or do Canadian within different human interactions. This reflects youths\u27 resiliency in dealing with the potentially oppressive situations that arise when living in ethnically/racially heterogeneous environments. The implications of these findings for social work research and therapeutic practice are discussed

Opening the Space Between Innocent and Oppressive Ways of Knowing: Challenges and Opportunities in Doing Research with Diverse Communities

The growing ethno-racial diversity reflected in Canadian society has prompted increased academic interest, particularly in the field of social work, in understanding how people from different ethno-racial groups experience and perceive the world. In this paper, we talk about the challenges of creating such knowledge, or engaging in “cross-cultural research”. We focus this discussion on three main dimensions of the research process: the goals and values underlying the research; the nature of knowledge negotiated in the research relationship; and the way that power is structured in the researcher/participant relationship. We begin by describing each of these with reference to “traditional” ways of doing cross-cultural research, and articulate how such approaches work to sustain the colonialist project. We then discuss the growing trend towards using “Participatory Action Research” (PAR) as an alternative approach to conducting research in the social sciences that is respectful, liberating, and geared towards social change. We suggest, however, that the idealization that PAR can somehow create an innocent or non-oppressive space for research is an illusion. Instead, we draw on the work of post-structural educator Elizabeth Ellsworth (1997) to enrich existing work on PAR approaches to cross-cultural research

And Then What? Four Community Psychologists Reflect on Their Careers Ten Years After Graduation

According to a recent survey of North American Community Psychology (CP) graduate programs, over half of CP graduates find employment in community practice (Dziadkowiec & Jimenez, 2009). That trend has been on the rise over the last few decades. In Canada, Nelson and Lavoie (2010) concluded that, compared to 25 years ago, “there is now a sizable number of community psychologists who are primarily practitioners and applied researchers” (p. 84). In this paper, we provide a glimpse into the career paths of 4 Canadian CP graduates, and describe how our CP training prepared us for our lives after graduation. We completed our master’s degrees in CP at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) (Ontario, Canada) approximately ten years ago. Two of us went on to obtain PhDs while the other two went straight into the workforce. We represent diverse professions: research/evaluation consultant in a hospital setting, government policy analyst, independent researcher/consultant, and Canadian diplomat. Although several of us have worked in academia, we are now primarily community practitioners. We are also mothers and active members of our communities. We will explore what attracted us to the CP program and how we have applied CP values and skills in our respective careers. By providing real-life accounts of what CP graduates do after their training, we hope to demonstrate the value that the program has had in our professional and personal lives, as well as to contribute to the ongoing discussion on building relevant CP programs

And Then What? Four Community Psychologists Reflect on Their Careers Ten Years After Graduation

According to a recent survey of North American Community Psychology (CP) graduate programs, over half of CP graduates find employment in community practice (Dziadkowiec & Jimenez, 2009). That trend has been on the rise over the last few decades. In Canada, Nelson and Lavoie (2010) concluded that, compared to 25 years ago, “there is now a sizable number of community psychologists who are primarily practitioners and applied researchers” (p. 84). In this paper, we provide a glimpse into the career paths of 4 Canadian CP graduates, and describe how our CP training prepared us for our lives after graduation. We completed our master’s degrees in CP at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) (Ontario, Canada) approximately ten years ago. Two of us went on to obtain PhDs while the other two went straight into the workforce. We represent diverse professions: research/evaluation consultant in a hospital setting, government policy analyst, independent researcher/consultant, and Canadian diplomat. Although several of us have worked in academia, we are now primarily community practitioners. We are also mothers and active members of our communities. We will explore what attracted us to the CP program and how we have applied CP values and skills in our respective careers. By providing real-life accounts of what CP graduates do after their training, we hope to demonstrate the value that the program has had in our professional and personal lives, as well as to contribute to the ongoing discussion on building relevant CP programs

Germline-encoded neutralization of a Staphylococcus aureus virulence factor by the human antibody repertoire.

Staphylococcus aureus is both an important pathogen and a human commensal. To explore this ambivalent relationship between host and microbe, we analysed the memory humoral response against IsdB, a protein involved in iron acquisition, in four healthy donors. Here we show that in all donors a heavily biased use of two immunoglobulin heavy chain germlines generated high affinity (pM) antibodies that neutralize the two IsdB NEAT domains, IGHV4-39 for NEAT1 and IGHV1-69 for NEAT2. In contrast to the typical antibody/antigen interactions, the binding is primarily driven by the germline-encoded hydrophobic CDRH-2 motifs of IGHV1-69 and IGHV4-39, with a binding mechanism nearly identical for each antibody derived from different donors. Our results suggest that IGHV1-69 and IGHV4-39, while part of the adaptive immune system, may have evolved under selection pressure to encode a binding motif innately capable of recognizing and neutralizing a structurally conserved protein domain involved in pathogen iron acquisition

WGS-based telomere length analysis in Dutch family trios implicates stronger maternal inheritance and a role for RRM1 gene

Telomere length (TL) regulation is an important factor in ageing, reproduction and cancer development. Genetic, hereditary and environmental factors regulating TL are currently widely investigated, however, their relative contribution to TL variability is still understudied. We have used whole genome sequencing data of 250 family trios from the Genome of the Netherlands project to perform computational measurement of TL and a series of regression and genome-wide association analyses to reveal TL inheritance patterns and associated genetic factors. Our results confirm that TL is a largely heritable trait, primarily with mother’s, and, to a lesser extent, with father’s TL having the strongest influence on the offspring. In this cohort, mother’s, but not father’s age at conception was positively linked to offspring TL. Age-related TL attrition of 40 bp/year had relatively small influence on TL variability. Finally, we have identified TL-associated variations in ribonuclease reductase catalytic subunit M1 (RRM1 gene), which is known to regulate telomere maintenance in yeast. We also highlight the importance of multivariate approach and the limitations of existing tools for the analysis of TL as a polygenic heritable quantitative trait

A framework for the detection of de novo mutations in family-based sequencing data

Germline mutation detection from human DNA sequence data is challenging due to the rarity of such events relative to the intrinsic error rates of sequencing technologies and the uneven coverage across the genome. We developed PhaseByTransmission (PBT) to identify de novo single nucleotide variants and short insertions and deletions (indels) from sequence data collected in parent-offspring trios. We compute the joint probability of the data given the genotype likelihoods in the individual family members, the known familial relationships and a prior probability for the mutation rate. Candidate de novo mutations (DNMs) are reported along with their posterior probability, providing a systematic way to prioritize them for validation. Our tool is integrated in the Genome Analysis Toolkit and can be used together with the ReadBackedPhasing module to infer the parental origin of DNMs based on phase-informative reads. Using simulated data, we show that PBT outperforms existing tools, especially in low coverage data and on the X chromosome. We further show that PBT displays high validation rates on empirical parent-offspring sequencing data for whole-exome data from 104 trios and X-chromosome data from 249 parent-offspring families. Finally, we demonstrate an association between father's age at conception and the number of DNMs in female offspring's X chromosome, consistent with previous literature reports

Skewed X-inactivation is common in the general female population

X-inactivation is a well-established dosage compensation mechanism ensuring that X-chromosomal genes are expressed at comparable levels in males and females. Skewed X-inactivation is often explained by negative selection of one of the alleles. We demonstrate that imbalanced expression of the paternal and maternal X-chromosomes is common in the general population and that the random nature of the X-inactivation mechanism can be sufficient to explain the imbalance. To this end, we analyzed blood-derived RNA and whole-genome sequencing data from 79 female children and their parents from the Genome of the Netherlands project. We calculated the median ratio of the paternal over total counts at all X-chromosomal heterozygous single-nucleotide variants with coverage ≥10. We identified two individuals where the same X-chromosome was inactivated in all cells. Imbalanced expression of the two X-chromosomes (ratios ≤0.35 or ≥0.65) was observed in nearly 50% of the population. The empirically observed skewing is explained by a theoretical model where X-inactivation takes place in an embryonic stage in which eight cells give rise to the hematopoietic compartment. Genes escaping X-inactivation are expressed from both alleles and therefore demonstrate less skewing than inactivated genes. Using this characteristic, we identified three novel escapee genes (SSR4, REPS2, and SEPT6), but did not find support for many previously reported escapee genes in blood. Our collective data suggest that skewed X-inactivation is common in the general population. This may contribute to manifestation of symptoms in carriers of recessive X-linked disorders. We recommend that X-inactivation results should not be used lightly in the interpretation of X-linked variants

To \u27brown it up\u27 or \u27bring down the brown\u27: Identity and strategy in second-generation, South Asian-Canadian youth

There is a growing body of research examining how ethnicity and race are implicated in identity development among ethno-racially diverse youth. Much of this research has focused on newcomer youth, resulting in a limited understanding of the particular challenges experienced by those have spent the majority of their lives in multicultural Canada. Furthermore, most of this research has portrayed identity as a static property, and youth as rather passive in the acquisition and expression of their identities. The current study explored the complex and dynamic ways that racialized youth create and recreate identities within the various social environments they participate. Specifically, this dissertation presents findings from research looking at identity in second-generation, South Asian Canadians. A grounded theory approach, with a corresponding qualitative methodology, was used to understand the personal, social, and situated identities of 26 young South Asian Canadian women and men (aged 18-25). Results from in-depth interviews with participants suggest that these youth are influenced both by a distinct ethnic/racial history, and a personal history grounded in Canadian experiences. These identities are multidimensional, flexible constructs that are created and re-created as youth interact with others around them. Youth are experts in assessing a particular situation, determining the most appropriate self\u27 to foreground from an array of identity choices, and executing expressions of identity that are likely to produce the outcome most in their favour. Youth, then, actively negotiate various aspects of their environments and by drawing on their identity capital , make deliberate, strategic choices about whether to do South Asian or do Canadian within different human interactions. This reflects youths\u27 resiliency in dealing with the potentially oppressive situations that arise when living in ethnically/racially heterogeneous environments. The implications of these findings for social work research and therapeutic practice are discussed