Does Sleep Enhance the Consolidation of Implicitly Learned Visuo-Motor Sequence Learning?

Sleep has been shown to facilitate the consolidation (i.e., enhancement) of simple explicit (i.e., conscious) motor sequence learning (MSL). It remains unclear the degree to which this applies to implicit (i.e., unconscious) MSL. Employing reaction time and response generation tasks, we investigated the extent to which sleep is involved in consolidating implicit MSL, specifically whether the motor or the spatial cognitive representations of a learned sequence are enhanced by sleep, and whether these changes support the development of explicit sequence knowledge across sleep but not wake. Our results indicate that spatial and motor representations can be behaviourally dissociated for implicit MSL. However, neither representation was preferentially enhanced across sleep nor were developments of explicit awareness observed. These results suggest that like explicit MSL, implicit MSL has dissociable spatial and motor representations, but unlike explicit sequence learning, implicit motor and spatial memory consolidation is independent of sleep

What are we Saving? Tracing Governing Knowledge and Truth Discourse in Global COVID-19 Policy Papers

As the world went into a swift lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, sending individuals to their homes and shutting businesses and institutions, the closing of schools posed big problems. The majority of the world’s children were out of school leading to the largest period of school closures in history. We saw educators turning towards responses, not aimed at collegial and community-engaged strategies for education in an emergency but to online learning cast as education/business as usual. This study explores the logic driving this global response through the policy papers released by three key global education actors: 1) the OECD and its paper A Framework to Guide Education Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020; 2) UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition #LearningNeverStops; and 3) the World Bank’s Guidance Note on Education System’s Response to COVID-19; and Guidance Note: Remote Learning and Covid 19. We draw on Bacchi’s post-structural policy analysis to make visible the key concepts and binaries used within policy texts and to understand the technologies of saving that were invoked in each policy response, locating the education programs, activities and actors within knowledge practices in educational reform. This article explores the World Bank, OECD, and UNESCO responses using an analysis of knowledge harmonization and difference among these institutions as well as their location as key norm setters and governing actors in the field of education

AN IN OVO TOXICOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF INDIVIDUAL AND COMBINED FUSARIUM MYCOTOXINS IN THE CHICKEN EMBRYO

The increasing occurrence of Fusarium fungi and associated mycotoxins in cereal grains is a significant issue for global agriculture. The mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) is the most prevalent feed contaminant worldwide and causes a variety of adverse effects in animals. While the individual toxicity of DON is a concern, exposure to multiple mycotoxins in feed is more common, necessitating information on the outcome of mixture exposures. However, characterizing the toxicity of DON and other mycotoxins has been difficult due to highly varied responses in long-term animal feeding trials. In addition, resources required for whole animal testing are only amplified in combinatorial mycotoxin studies given the large sample sizes and number of treatment groups required. The chicken embryo has been widely and successfully utilized as a non-animal alternative to evaluate the toxicity of environmental pollutants and could be used as a screening tool to evaluate mycotoxin mechanisms of action and mixture toxicity. The overall objective of this thesis research is to characterize the effects of DON (administered in ovo) alone and in combination with a commonly co-occurring mycotoxins, zearalenone (ZEA), to the late-term chicken embryo in order to determine whether an in ovo approach for conducting exposures to Fusarium mycotoxins could be used as a predictive tool for assessing the toxicity of Fusarium mycotoxins alone and in combination. The overall hypothesis is that responses of the late-term chicken embryo to single doses of Fusarium mycotoxins, alone or in combination, are similar to those reported in whole animal feeding trials with poultry. In the first experiment, the effect of in ovo administration of DON was evaluated in terms of embryotoxicity, growth and development, pathological changes to tissue, and biochemical/molecular indicators of oxidative and immune stress. A single injection of purified DON was administered to the late-term chicken embryo (embryonic day 14, ED14) at five doses ranging from 0.0 – 5.0 μg DON/g egg weight. Eggs were opened on ED20 and embryos were evaluated for survivability and growth parameters. Tissues were sampled for subsequent analysis. At the highest dose, DON decreased embryo survivability and increased the absolute and relative weight of both liver and spleen. Hepatic bile stagnation and concurrent splenic inflammation were frequently detected among groups receiving 5.0 and 1.0 μg DON/g egg weight but were observed less often in the latter. A dose-dependent increase in granulopoiesis and lipid peroxidation (as measured by TBARS assay) were observed in the liver; however, mRNA expression of genes related to immune and oxidative stress were mostly unchanged. These results suggest that the chicken embryo responds to in ovo DON exposure with effects on immunity and oxidative stress that are supported by previous in vivo and in vitro findings. The in ovo approach developed and validated in the first experiment was then carried forward to a second experiment with the aim of characterizing the combined toxicity of DON and another mycotoxin, ZEA to the chicken embryo. ZEA was chosen for this experiment because the combination of DON and ZEA is considered to be the most prevalent mycotoxin mixture in North America and worldwide. Treatments included an untreated control group (CON), a vehicle-injected control group (20% DMSO), 0.5 and 2.5 μg DON/g egg weight, 0.5 and 2.5 μg ZEA/g egg weight, and a low and high combination treatment at 0.5 μg DON + 0.5 μg ZEA/g egg weight and 2.5 μg DON + 2.5 μg ZEA/g egg weight, respectively. The results demonstrated that interactive effects of DON and ZEA differed across endpoints and tended to vary from antagonistic at low doses to non-interactive or possibly potentiated at high doses. At low doses, DON and ZEA had antagonistic effects on liver weight as well as liver lipid peroxidation. At high doses, effects of DON and ZEA were mostly independent and effects of DON, specifically, were in line with our previous observations. At a combined, high dose of DON and ZEA there was evidence of possible potentiation with respect to embryo survivability, hepatic bile stagnation and splenic inflammation, and hepatic granulopoiesis. These results suggest the chicken in ovo model is useful for studying combinatorial mycotoxin toxicity; however, further research regarding ZEA-induced toxicity would improve response interpretation. Overall, the results presented in this thesis indicate that in ovo responses to Fusarium mycotoxins, alone and in combination, are supported by previous in vitro and in vivo findings. While in ovo mycotoxin exposures cannot replace in vivo experimentation, there is potential for the in ovo model to inform whole animal studies by identifying and prioritizing emerging mycotoxins and high-risk mycotoxin combinations for further in vivo assessment. In the future, the in ovo model could be used in a more practical application as a rapid-screening tool to assess the toxicity of mycotoxin grain extracts or to evaluate the efficacy of new mycotoxin mitigation techniques

“The Sisterhood is Watching”: Challenging Identity and Agency in Citizenship

“The Garneau Sisterhood is watching”, warns an impromptu poster in the Garneau community, following a police warning for women to take safety precautions subsequent to announcements of a serial rapist in the area. In this context, tensions exist between the individual, the state and the collective. In this interpretivist study, we invoke the lens of feminist theory to examine the relationship between identity and agency in a collective conceptualization of the citizen. Through content analysis of a sampling of public media, we present the case of the Garneau Sisterhood to consider the relationship between collective identity and agency in challenging the constraints of individualist notions of citizenship. Finally, we argue that feminist citizenship education is needed to engage the notion of collective identity and agency as a source of empowerment for students, and other citizens, to raise issues of importance in the public sphere

Student Employability in COVID-19 Project Summary

The impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic on higher education could be seen in education in early 2020. Significant labour market disruptions places students among the group experiencing the heaviest burden from layoffs and work insecurity during this time. Higher education institutions also face financial uncertainty, bracing for shifts in enrolment and tuition revenue, particularly related to international student cohorts. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on student employability are on the radar of policymakers, university faculty and administrators, employers, and students alike

Employability in COVID-19

The impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic on higher education could be seen in education in early 2020. Significant labour market disruptions places students among the group experiencing the heaviest burden from layoffs and work insecurity during this time. Higher education institutions also face financial uncertainty, bracing for shifts in enrolment and tuition revenue, particularly related to international student cohorts. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on student employability are on the radar of policymakers, university faculty and administrators, employers, and students alike

Performing Internationalization of Higher Education in Canadian National Policy

Internationalization processes are at the fore of university strategic plans on a global scale. However, the work of internationalization is being performed through the connections between many actors at different policy levels. Our purpose here is to ask, what is happening with internationalization of higher education at the Canadian national policy level? To do so, we suggest that we must look at policies at the national level not as individual entities but rather as these policies exist in relation to each other. We examine three recent policy statements from different organizations at the national level in Canada: a federal governmental agency, a pan-Canadian provincial organization and a national educational association. Our approach involved mapping the actors, knowledges and spaces that are discursively produced through these texts and engaging a relational approach to policy analysis that questions what comes to be assembled as these policies co-exist in the national landscape.  À l’échelle mondiale, les processus d’internationalisation se trouvent à l’avant-centre des plans stratégiques universitaires. Toutefois, le travail d’internationalisation s’effectue par des relations entre de nombreux acteurs, à différents niveaux de politique générale. Nous étudions le statut d’internationalisation de l’enseignement supérieur à l’échelle des politiques nationales du Canada. Nous émettons la possibilité d’étudier les politiques à l’échelle nationale, plutôt qu’à une échelle individuelle. Nous analysons également comment ces politiques coexistent entre elles. Nous décortiquons trois récents énoncés de politique émis par différentes organisations de niveau national au Canada : une agence fédérale gouvernementale, une organisation provinciale pancanadienne et une association éducative nationale. Notre approche consistait à cartographier les acteurs, à analyser les connaissances et espaces produits de manière discursive par ces énoncés de politique, et à entreprendre une approche relationnelle d’analyse de politiques qui remet les énoncés en cause, tandis que ces politiques coexistent sur la scène nationale