“It’s a dead place”: A qualitative exploration of violence survivors’ perceptions of justice architecture

Each year, thousands of victims of violence enter the Canadian criminal justice system and, by extension, justice buildings, such as police stations and courthouses. The architecture and design of these buildings communicate symbolic messages about justice and may influence the emotions, behaviors, and well-being of survivors. This qualitative study explored survivors’ emotional experiences with justice architecture. Findings reveal that survivors experience justice architecture as cold and hard. facilitator of feelings of insignificance; lacking in privacy and; representative of their raw emotional state. The author discusses implications of these findings for victim engagement in the context of justice spaces. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Is Less Really More?: Determining the Efficacy and Advantages of Low Dose Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the preferred treatment for patients with breast cancer nationwide; however, the dosage and duration of this treatment have come under recent scrutiny. The efficacy of high dose chemotherapy is many times inadequate, and the adverse physical effects resulting from this regimen have a negative holistic impact on the patients. Studies suggest that low dose chemotherapy, through antiangiogenesis, affects the spread of breast cancer carcinomas and may produce less harmful side effects in relation to the heart, brain, and eyes. Thus, oncological research proposes that a low dose regimen improves the patient’s quality of life and may be an effective regimen to treat breast cancer, simultaneously. Chemotherapy administered in low doses, coupled with innovative treatments such as insulin potentiation, may prove to be a regimen able to weaken breast malignancies without debilitating the patient’s daily functioning

The Processes of Help-Seeking and Counsellor Development in the Context Of Men who Experience Intimate Partner Abuse

Men experience IPA from women at significant rates; this abuse can be severe and can have serious, deleterious effects on men’s emotional and physical health. Yet, men are hesitant to seek help for this abuse. Simultaneously, literature depicts a divide amongst counsellors’ willingness and ability to provide services to this population. Through a review of this literature, I thought it beneficial to better understand the processes involved in men seeking help in the context of IPA, and in becoming a service provider who validates men’s experiences of IPA and is willing to provide counselling to them. To approach this goal, I utilized grounded theory methodology, within the context of a social constructionist epistemology and a relativist ontology. Further, I utilized feminist anti-oppressive theory as my overarching theoretical lens through which I developed and implemented this dissertation project. Study 1 involved interviews with 10 men who had experienced IPA: eight of whom had sought help, and two of whom had not. The results of Study 1 depicted a five-phase process that men go through, each time that they seek any type of help, for any type of IPA. These phases included: 1) Experiencing Distress/Abuse, 2) Recognizing Severity, 3) Realizing Limitations, 4) Deciding to Seek Help [Subphase a) Exploring Options, and Subphase b) Weighing Pros and Cons; both which were driven by a feeling of Ambivalence towards seeking help], and 5) Obtaining and Engaging in Help. For Study 2, I recruited eight participants who provided counselling services to stigmatized populations: six of whom provided counselling services to men who have experienced IPA, and two of whom provided counselling services to other stigmatized populations. The results of Study 2 depicted a three-phase process that counsellors go through, as they become someone who is willing to provide services to this population. Namely: 1) Realizing Severity, 2) Wanting to Help, and 3) Forming a Validating Connection [Subphase a) Recognizing Biases, and Subphase b) Addressing Biases]. The results of Study 1 align with previously postulated models of both general and IPA-specific help-seeking, and add further depth and clarity regarding the specific processes involved. This model can be used to help service providers predict and subsequently address exit points for men in their help-seeking journeys. It further provides clarity regarding what needs to be addressed societally in order to further facilitate men’s help-seeking. The model developed through Study 2 corroborates previous theoretical literature, which posits that professional and personal experiences are salient factors in counsellors’ professional identity development. Moreover, this model adds to the literature, as it allows for a description of the mechanisms through which these experiences affect professional development. Further, this model is unique in its clarification of the process counsellors go through in determining which populations to work with. This model can be used to predict when and why counsellors might choose to, or not to provide services to men who have experienced IPA and can be used to guide development of training and continuing education programs for professionals, in order to encourage better service provisions to men who have experienced IPA. These models elucidate the factors which can cause men and counsellors to egress the processes and can help to propagate ideas regarding how best to address these barriers. This is all done with the intention of increasing help-seeking amongst men who have experienced IPA, and of making their help-seeking and receiving experiences safer, easier, and more beneficial for them

Population and family effects on gene transcriptional profiles of eight hybrid Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) populations: implications for conservation and aquaculture

Aquaculture has been the fastest growing food industry worldwide since 1985 and has contributed significantly to the Canadian economy. Thus, methods for increasing aquaculture production are currently being investigated, such as selective breeding programs. Here I developed transcriptional profiles of eight hybrid half-sibling populations of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and examined them for evidence of local adaptation and as a potential marker for marker-assisted selection method. I found evidence of local adaptation among the populations, further supporting this as a driving force behind the large variation witnessed in Chinook salmon life history variation. I used the transcriptional profiles developed for each population in the freshwater (juvenile) stage and tested for correlations with saltwater performance (growth rate and survival). I found significant correlations between saltwater performance factors and juvenile transcription, suggesting that saltwater performance in Chinook salmon can be predicted using freshwater transcription patterns. There were also significant correlations between freshwater and saltwater transcription, indicating possible mechanisms behind the correlation between freshwater and saltwater traits. Freshwater Chinook salmon transcriptional profiles are a promising novel marker for application in marker-assisted selection breeding programs in aquaculture. Overall, transcriptional profiling using selected known-function genes provide the ability to study both local adaptation and performance in Chinook salmon populations

Keypoint Transfer for Fast Whole-Body Segmentation

We introduce an approach for image segmentation based on sparse correspondences between keypoints in testing and training images. Keypoints represent automatically identified distinctive image locations, where each keypoint correspondence suggests a transformation between images. We use these correspondences to transfer label maps of entire organs from the training images to the test image. The keypoint transfer algorithm includes three steps: (i) keypoint matching, (ii) voting-based keypoint labeling, and (iii) keypoint-based probabilistic transfer of organ segmentations. We report segmentation results for abdominal organs in whole-body CT and MRI, as well as in contrast-enhanced CT and MRI. Our method offers a speed-up of about three orders of magnitude in comparison to common multi-atlas segmentation, while achieving an accuracy that compares favorably. Moreover, keypoint transfer does not require the registration to an atlas or a training phase. Finally, the method allows for the segmentation of scans with highly variable field-of-view.Comment: Accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Medical Imagin

Home Range Analysis of the Montane Vole

This study on Microtus montanus was divided into three major sections: 1) An examination of nests, burrows, and runways, 2) A comparison of two methods of home range analysis--live trapping and radio-isotope tracing, and 3) A comparison of the home range of Microtus montanus with other species of Microtus as published in the literature