“Did you have a good weekend?” A week-level diary study examining the relationship between weekend recovery and weekday performance

Sufficient rest breaks are needed for optimal performance in traditional workplaces, but it is unclear how working with a loosely structured work schedule impacts recovery. Students have temporal flexibility and serve as a good proxy for all groups who work unstructured work schedules. Since most students and employees use the weekend to recover, this study investigated the relationship between recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment, relaxation, and mastery) over the weekend and the state of being recovered on the following Monday. Further, the relationship between the state of being recovered on Monday and weekday performance indicators (i.e., task performance and personal initiative) was investigated. Data was collected over three consecutive weeks from a cohort of first-year university students (N = 106) using a quantitative diary study design. This study administered seven surveys (i.e., a personal data survey once, a pre-weekend survey three times, and a postweekend survey three times). After three weeks, 66 participants (N = 66) had completed all the surveys at the person level, yielding 148 matched observations at the week-level. Multilevel modelling showed that weekend relaxation positively predicted the state of being recovered on Monday. Weekend psychological detachment and weekend mastery experiences did not predict the state of being recovered on Monday, and the state of being recovered did not predict weekly personal initiative or weekly task performance. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are presented, as are limitations and suggestions for future research

Playful architecture - Constructing sociality

This thesis explores themes of playful architecture, and how activated, adaptable, and dynamic spaces can be created through embracing the inherent instability of social space. The exploration focuses on the social aspects of space and on an architecture that is capable of encouraging connection and interaction, an architecture that can adapt and promote skills development and sharing, and an architecture that provides identity – one that acts as an attractor rather than an object. Social spaces are unpredictable and dynamic in the interactions and the events that it allows for. Spaces are also full of paradoxes - of disjunction between space and event. This means that architecture and space is constantly unstable and on the verge of change. It is these dynamic and chaotic elements that, if held properly, allow for social, creative, and playful spaces and events. The project is situated within an imagined future fabric of District 6 in Cape Town, on a site with existing activities to be plugged into and reinforced. This site also allowed for a testing of how a playful architecture, that is community and socially driven, sits within the developing context of South Africa. The programme revolves around a city living room which is a training centre providing spaces for working, learning, and engaging as well as offering accessible social hubs that act as social filters, allowing users in and around the site to gather, wait and interact

A retrospective comparative study of homicide deaths in Kosovo from 2006-2015

Homicide comparison between countries is generally difficult, unless the method for documenting homicides is standard between the countries of comparison. A scant number of reputable retrospective homicide studies have been published and of the studies that are available, there is no standardisation. Homicide data for the country of Kosovo has been documented by the Institute of Forensic Medicine (IFM) in Pristina. The homicides registered by the IFM from 2006-2015 in Kosovo were retrospectively studied and significantly this revealed that in 73.76% of all homicides committed, firearms were the weapon used. Limited specific firearm data is readily available for the country of Kosovo, further follow up studies and better recording of evidence are required to ascertain for certain why firearms are so widely used in homicides. Although a general downward trend since 2006 in the number of homicides per 100,000 population was identified, presently there is no enforced standard method for the reporting of all deaths in Kosovo, including homicides. Therefore, this study aims firstly to publish Kosovar retrospective homicide data for the use as a prevention and reduction tool and additionally to critically review global estimations of homicide rates and the available international retrospective homicide literature, to more accurately identify and establish a standardised method for the reporting of homicides. Fundamentally the findings of this study will be utilised to provide the IFM in Kosovo with a critical review of the approaches regarding the documentation of homicides and recommendations, to further their practice in the recording and analysis of homicides in Kosovo

PSYCHOSOCIAL PREDICTORS OF CHRONIC PAIN AND PAIN-RELATED DISABILITY 12 MONTHS AFTER LOWER EXTREMITY FRACTURE

Over 700,000 lower extremity fractures occur each year with a large portion of these patients developing adverse long-term pain and disability outcomes. Current literature indicates that 39% to 62.7% of all patients report continued pain long after traumatic lower extremity fracture. Concurrent physical limitations and reduced quality of life are common, with nearly one-third of all patients reporting pain-related disability seven years after limb threatening trauma, and approximately 50% of these patients having limitations in functional mobility and activities of daily living at long-term follow-up. These poor long-term injury-related pain and disability outcomes are alarming and require further action to detect individuals at the greatest risk for detrimental outcomes in earlier stages of recovery. Evidence for the important association psychosocial factors carry with suboptimal long-term outcomes after traumatic injury is lacking. Previous research has demonstrated that depression, self-efficacy, pain catastrophizing, and fear of movement are associated with pain and disability outcomes. However, no research has determined the earliest clinically meaningful timeframe possible to screen for these psychosocial measures. Furthermore, much of the research has only evaluated one psychosocial measure at a time, limiting our understanding of the most salient psychosocial measures associated with patient pain and physical function outcomes. Additionally, none of the past studies have excluded individuals with a history of chronic pain, which may enhance the association psychosocial measures have with adverse outcomes. Finally, no multidimensional screening tools exist to stratify patient risk for adverse long-term outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to evaluate how multiple psychosocial measures were associated with long-term patient outcomes after surgical fixation of lower extremity fracture. All studies included in this dissertation are based on the same cohort of 122 patients who did not have a history of chronic pain and were followed through their first 12 months of recovery from surgical fixation of a lower extremity fracture. Patients completed validated measures of depression, self-efficacy, pain catastrophizing, fear of movement, and pain intensity one week, six weeks, three months, six months, and 12 months after definitive surgical fixation. At six weeks, each patient also completed the Subgroups for Targeted Treatment (STarT)-Lower Extremity Screening Tool (STarT-LE) with a retest completed one week later. At 12 months, patients completed validated, self-reported outcomes of chronic pain development, pain interference, and physical function. The results of these studies indicate that six weeks after surgical fixation is the earliest time point psychosocial measures can be screened to determine risk for chronic pain, with large to very large effect sizes. Additionally, pain self-efficacy at six weeks was most strongly associated with chronic pain development and physical function at 12 months when accounting for depression and other important baseline variables. Pain catastrophizing at six weeks was most strongly associated with pain interference at 12 months when accounting for depression and other important baseline variables. Finally, we established the STarT-LE at six weeks as having strong reliability and predictive validity to stratify patients into low, medium, or high risk for each outcome at 12 months. The results of these studies objectively demonstrate that screening individuals with the STarT-LE, pain self-efficacy questionnaire, and pain catastrophizing scale six weeks after injury can inform the clinician with valuable information regarding the patient’s long-term prognosis

Assessing the value of action research: Using a world café to explore the professional journey of nurse educators

Nurse educators play a crucial role in the development of student nurses’ clinical reasoning skills. To promote clinical reasoning skills, nurse educators should identify and implement appropriate student-centred teaching practices. We used the World Café data collection method to explore nurse educator’s professional journey through action research. We describe how action research, participating in the study and collaborative inquiry changed teaching practices. Action research contributed to nurse educators’ professional development, allowing them to reflect on own practices and develop critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills. Nurse educators reported using more student-centred teaching and learning practices. We describe the World Café method, which we used to collect data. The method can also be used in nursing education as a teaching strategy, students can explore various topics of interest whilst developing competencies in communication, building relationships and collaborative learning

Population genomics and environmental adaptation in the sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus, detected using RAD-seq derived SNPs and experimental larval rearing

Understanding the scale of connectivity and adaptation among marine populations can inform fisheries conservation and management. We used a combination of advanced genomic techniques and experimental methods to determine the scale of connectivity and adaptation in the sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus. Restriction-site Associated DNA sequencing genotyped 7163 SNPs in 245 individuals across 12 populations in the Northwest Atlantic. Subsequent analysis of these data identified a strong separation between populations north and south of Nova Scotia and identified an association between population structure and the coldest temperatures experienced by scallop populations. Common garden experiments on a northern and southern populations found that larvae from the north grew more quickly overall, potentially an adaptive strategy to the northern winter. These observations contribute to growing evidence of fine-scale population structure and adaptation in marine systems and support the hypothesis that a combination of limited dispersal and adaptive differentiation drives sea scallop population structure

Carbon Credit Systems in Alberta Agriculture

The Pan-Canadian Framework was implemented in 2016 to help meet emission reduction targets set out by the Paris Agreement. Carbon pricing is at the foundation of this framework, where Alberta has used a carbon-credit market to reduce emissions from large-scale emitters. Agricultural producers voluntarily participate in these markets through agricultural carbon offset protocols; regulated emitters can purchase agricultural carbon credits to meet their emission reduction requirements. The main goal of these agricultural protocols is to reduce on-farm emissions through the adoption of best management practices (BMPs), alongside providing producers with the potential benefit of earning additional revenue by selling carbon credits on the market. While producers have participated in the market for quite some time, the impact of the market on Alberta agricultural producers is unknown. The main objective of this paper is to understand this impact by analyzing two considerations: 1) emission reductions (or removals) from agricultural protocols; and 2) economic benefits to producers from participating in the carbon offset market. After a case study of current agricultural carbon offset protocols, the results suggest producers are mainly participating for the economic benefits stemming from the adoption of BMPs, rather than the potential revenue from selling carbon credits on the market. Results also show protocols have high emission reduction potential, but this analysis was limited due to a lack of publicly available data. The most significant observation is that the majority of protocol emission reductions come from one protocol, the Conservation Cropping Protocol. The remaining agricultural protocols have seen minimal uptake in participation, specifically from livestock producers, which is concerning given the retirement of the Conservation Cropping Protocol on December 31, 2021. The main consideration will be addressing current protocol shortcomings to ensure producers are willing and able to participate in the market