VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Instructor Goals and Practices related to STSE (Science, Technology, Society and the Environment) in the Teaching of Undergraduate Engineering Students

Given the role of science and technology in creating and mitigating our society’s biggest challenges, undergraduate engineering programs must build in opportunities for students to explore the complex relationship between science and technology, encourage citizenship and action on critical social issues, and consider the impact of engineering’s work on society and the environment– the hallmarks of STSE (Science, Technology, Society and the Environment) education. The goal of this research was to explore instructor teaching goals and practices, and more specifically their goals and practices related to the use of STSE perspectives in their own teaching of undergraduate engineering students. The study also sought to identify the challenges and enabling factors that engineering instructors experience in utilizing STSE-related practices. This study employed an online survey with 180 participants at four universities in Ontario, designed to provide an initial understanding and broad overview of STSE in the context of engineering education. Following the survey, 12 instructors who had completed the survey were interviewed, to help provide a deeper understanding of instructor goals and practices related to their teaching and teacher identity, and the relationship between their teaching goals and practices and an existing STSE theoretical framework. The study draws from the literature on K-12 STSE education, teaching in higher education, instructor views of teaching engineering, and STSE-related practices and philosophies in engineering education. The study found that engineering instructors employ a diversity of goals and practices in their teaching, and demonstrate a strong bend towards real-world applications. Instructors demonstrated moderate support for STSE, with a strong orientation towards problem solving and design, but shared concerns about exploring issues of social justice and fairness and the possibility of imposing bias on students. This is reflective of work in engineering education that highlights the historically apolitical nature of engineering and its resonance in undergraduate engineering programs. Finally, a reframing of STSE is offered to acknowledge the role of problem solving alongside a more holistic issues-based exploration in engineering, which aligns with recent work on sociotechnical thinking and social responsibility in engineering education.

Keywords: Engineering
Higher Education
STSE
Teaching
Advisor: Pedretti, Erminia
The Prevalence of Depression and Its Impact on Employment Earnings among Canadian Labor Force Participants

Depression is among the largest health capital threats to Canada’s labor force population. It is unclear how depression prevalence has been behaving over time among the Canadian working-age population, and its impact on and co-occurrence with labor market outcomes, such as employment earnings. In this dissertation, I quantify trends in major depressive episode (MDE) prevalence among various segments of the Canadian labor force and determine how experiencing depression influences employment earnings trajectories over the working life. My first study employed a cross-sectional time series methodology to quantify the trend in the prevalence of annual MDEs among different segments of the Canadian labor force from 2000 to 2016. Findings suggest that prevalence of annual MDEs was stable between 2000 and 2016; average prevalence of annual MDEs over this period was roughly double that among those unemployed or not participating in the labor force compared to those who were employed. My second study linked annual administrative tax records to population health data to determine how experiencing a MDE influences employment earnings over the subsequent decade among working-aged Canadian men and women. Using a propensity score-matched cohort design and longitudinal multi-level modeling, results suggested a crude, cumulative ten-year earnings loss of ~$71,000 CAD for working-aged women and ~$115,000 for working-aged men who experienced a MDE. My last study employed parallel latent growth modeling to quantify the number of concurrent trajectories of depression-related mental health and employment earnings over a 19-year period. The study examined an American cohort entering the labor force in 1997, followed until 2017. Four latent classes were uncovered: one class with stable poor mental health and the lowest earnings (~$32,000 USD in 2017), and three classes with stable positive mental health and earnings ranging from ~$39,500 to $196,000 in 2017. Being a woman, Black or Hispanic, poor adolescent socioeconomic status, adolescent marijuana use, and overweight body weight in 1997 was associated with higher odds of belonging to the poor mental health, lowest earnings class. Taken together, this dissertation highlights the persistent nature of depression prevalence and its longstanding impact on earnings among labor force participants over the past 20 years.

Keywords: Canada
Depression
Epidemiology
Labor Force
Longitudinal Analysis
MDE
Advisor: Smith, Peter M
Mental Health in Canadian Elite Sport

Research on mental health has flourished in recent years (e.g., Vella et al., 2021), however, much of the research in this area has relied on cross-sectional designs, and there is limited work studying mental disorder among Canadian athletes. Research is also needed to understand the effect that Canadian sport environments can have on athletes’ mental health. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the mental health experiences of elite Canadian athletes. Studies One and Two evaluated the prevalence of symptoms of mental disorders (depression, anxiety, and eating disorders) among elite Canadian athletes, and explored how athletes’ symptoms of mental disorders changed over the course of a pandemic year. Data were collected through surveys that were completed at four times by elite Canadian athletes (ntime1 = 186, ntime2 = 142, ntime3 = 123, ntime4 = 108). Study One relied on data from time one, while Study Two relied on data from all four time points. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlations, and latent growth modeling. Symptoms of mental disorder were very prevalent among this population at baseline (~40%), and did not change over time. Stress and training load were correlated with symptoms of disorder, and there were some differences in the prevalence and changes in disorder symptomology over time between men and women. The purpose of Study Three was to understand how elite sport training environments in Canada impact the mental health of the athletes who train within them. Thirty-two Canadian athletes participated in one semi-structured interview. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Sport environments played a role in athletes’ perceptions of stigma and their willingness to seek help which impacted their overall mental health experiences. Together, these studies provide a more complete picture of Canadian athletes’ mental health and may inform interventions and policies designed to support athlete mental health.

Keywords: athlete mental health
athlete well-being
high-performance sport
Olympic athlete
Paralympic athlete
sport organization
Advisor: Tamminen, Katherine A
Power Corrections and Rapidity Logarithms in Soft-collinear Effective Theory

In this thesis a recent formulation of Soft-Collinear Effective Theory is used to study power corrections to collider observables. The techniques and concepts developed here are primarily demonstrated in the context of the Drell-Yan process, but are also broadly applicable in processes involving high-energy collimated colored particles. First, we make progress towards the resummation of power-suppressed logarithms in processes which involve the hard interaction of two jets. We identify and compute the anomalous dimensions of all the operators that contribute to two-sector processes at $O(1/q^2)$. These anomalous dimensions are necessary to resum hard processes at next-to-leading power, although an additional observable-dependent step of matching and running is necessary to complete the full resummation. We also demonstrate how the overlap subtraction prescription for loops extends to these subleading operators. Next, we study the origin of rapidity logarithms using a formulation of Soft-Collinear Effective Theory in which infrared degrees of freedom are not explicitly separated into modes. We consider the Sudakov form factor with a massive vector boson and Drell-Yan production of lepton pairs at small transverse momentum as demonstrative examples. We find that rapidity divergences introduce a scheme dependence into the effective theory and are associated with large logarithms appearing in the soft matching conditions. This scheme dependence may be used to derive corresponding rapidity renormalization group equations. Finally, we examine the Drell-Yan process at next-to-leading power, where we derive a factorization of the differential cross section in the small-$q_T$ hierarchy with $q^2\gg q_T^2\gg\Lambda_{\mathrm{QCD}}^2$. We show that the cross section may be written in terms of matrix elements of power-suppressed operator products which contribute to $O(q_T^2/q^2)$ coefficients of the usual parton distribution functions. The factorization formula allows power-suppressed logarithms in each of the relevant factors to be resummed. We discuss the cancellation of rapidity divergences and the overlap subtractions required to eliminate double counting at next-to-leading power.

Keywords: Effective Field Theories
Hadron Scattering
Jet Physics
Particle Physics
Resummation
Soft-Collinear Effective Theory
Advisor: Luke, Michael
Bioengineering Functional Grafts for Tracheal Regeneration

Long-segment tracheal obstruction and malignancy lead to a poor prognosis for patients, for which tracheal transplantation is the only definitive treatment option. Tracheal transplants primarily fail due to lack of tracheal function as well as immune rejection, both of which are attributed to the tracheal epithelium. Tracheal tissue engineering approaches developed till date do not promote epithelial maturation, leading to graft failure. Therefore, to meet this clinical need, we developed two approaches for producing functional tracheal grafts: 1) in vitro generation of fully differentiated biomaterials-based epithelial grafts for application in airway defects and 2) ex vivo generation of long-segment tracheae, with a functional epithelium, in a bioreactor. For the first approach, we defined quantitative selection criteria for engineering airway grafts using biomaterials. Based on these criteria, we developed a composite biomaterial of Silk Fibroin and Collagen Vitrigel Membrane (SF-CVM) that allowed epithelial maturation of primary airway progenitors and provided mechanical stability for surgical manipulation. Primary airway progenitors are limited in their ability to expand and differentiate reliably, therefore we generated airway progenitors using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC-APs) for both of our approaches. We differentiated hiPSC-APs on SF-CVM grafts towards functional ciliated and goblet cells. We further demonstrated their successful integration and viability in a pig airway defect survival model. For the second approach, we repopulated long-segment de-epithelialized pig tracheae with hiPSC-APs in a perfusion-based bioreactor. The resulting grafts exhibited uniform attachment of hiPSC-APs and their differentiation into a pseudostratified epithelium with goblet cells. Overall, we achieved pre-clinical application of hiPSC-derived airway grafts. We also advanced the field of tracheal tissue engineering by developing mature hiPSC-derived long-segment tracheal grafts ex vivo. Our tissue-engineered approaches hold immense promise for fabricating recipient-derived tracheal grafts, which will not only evade immune rejection but also provide organ functionality, and therefore significantly enhance the viability of tracheal transplants.

Keywords: Airway Grafts
Biomaterials
Bioreactor
iPSC
Tissue Engineering
Trachea
Advisor: Waddell, Thomas K
Exploring the Functional and Structural Brain Alterations following Youth Concussion Utilizing a Dual-task Paradigm

There are many benefits to sports participation for youth, despite the increased risk of sustaining a concussion. However, return-to-play protocols often fail to capture underlying disruptions in brain function or structure due to their limited ecological validity. Assessments often rely on single dimensional tasks and rarely integrate cognitive-motor components critical in sports. The overall objective of my dissertation was to investigate brain function and structure in youth with concussion using dual task paradigms. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the first study evaluated the chronic impact of concussion on grey matter microstructure and the relationship between changes in structure and dual-task performance. Cortical thinning was evident in brain regions critical to task coordination and was associated with poor task performance during dual-task. Switching over to functional near infrared spectroscopy, the second study investigated brain activation patterns during a cognitive-motor task, where youth with concussion exhibited altered activity in fronto-parietal brain regions, which was particularly prominent during the dual-task despite unimpaired task performance. Following two participants with concussion from study two, the third part of this thesis was a longitudinal case study that evaluated whether altered brain activation patterns persisted over the recovery trajectory. In line with study two, the dual-task elicited perturbed activity in more brain regions than the single tasks and these perturbations lingered at 3 months post-injury, despite symptom resolution. The findings suggest that the concussed brain can adapt to maintain dual task performance in the face of increased neural demand. However, interpreting our findings according to the capacity sharing model, there is a likely a limit to this compensation; it is likely that post-symptom resolution, some youth recovering from concussion may not be able to allocate sufficient neural resources to meet the high demands of sport and thereby risk subsequent injury. Taken together, this thesis provides support for a holistic approach to exploring concussion management that integrates brain function measurement during more sport-relevant tasks with the aim of minimizing subsequent concussions and ensuring youth continue to experience the benefits of sports participation.

Keywords: brain function
Concussion
cortical thickness
dual-task paradigm
Functional Near infrared spectroscopy
youth
Advisor: Chau, Tom
Scams and Aging: Factors Impacting Effective Decision Making

The present study investigated the older adults’ unique vulnerability to fraud and scams by understanding the role of social, cognitive, and knowledge-based factors, and testing a prevention paradigm. Studies 1 and 2 built upon preliminary work by examining social and cognitive predictors of prior victimization in community dwelling Chinese older adults. Study 3 examined the most promising factors again in a Canadian sample. The results here suggest that older adults in China who experience more socioemotional disturbance due to isolation may be at higher risk of victimization compared to their peers and compared to those in Canada. To better understand vulnerability, an objective scam detection task was designed for studies 4 and 5. Study 4 examined predictors of detection ability in older and younger adults and found a combined role of cognitive processing and accumulated knowledge after controlling for social and demographic factors. Study 5 used these findings to test a training with feedback paradigm to improve detection ability. Immediately after training, the intervention group performed significantly better than the control group, while the alternative education intervention group did not. However, the gains declined significantly by the three-week follow-up. Collectively, the findings support the need for age-based investigations of fraud vulnerability, the need for objective behavioural measures, and the possibility of knowledge-based interventions albeit with additional improvements.

Keywords: cognitive aging
decision making
fraud
isolation
older adults
scams
Advisor: Lee, Kang
Unlocking the “Black Box” of Hospital Competition: Multiple Case Studies in Government-Funded and Regulated Health Systems

This dissertation explores the phenomenon of competition in healthcare, focusing on highly regulated and publicly-funded settings, specifically two Canadian provinces with very different system structures. Empirical approaches included multiple case studies, interviews, and thematic-analysis. Despite the absence of a profit motive and the threat of market exclusion, competition is present in both systems, even across hospital sites merged into a single provincial authority. Similarities in the manifestation of competition across the two provinces may result from common organizational features and system pressures, including advocacy by hospital/site leaders, scarcity, technological innovations, uncertainty, and stakeholder expectations. However, in line with earlier studies, demand-side factors do not drive competition. Moreover, hospital leaders and referring physicians found information on the quality of care difficult to understand and relied on different strategies to assess care quality. Instead, factors, such as the potential for embarrassment, drove competition among hospitals/sites, underscoring the importance of reputation as a critical element in stimulating and defining competition among hospitals. Competition is also driven by hospital leaders’ intrinsic motivation to improve care quality. These findings align with existing literature and contribute to the literature by revealing clearer conceptualizations and pathways pertinent to healthcare competition. The findings reported in this dissertation also articulate key elements in the regulatory environment, namely health system typology, governance, and policy instruments, the combination of which shapes competition. They show that despite similarities between the systems' competition dynamics, the differences in these system traits create specific forces in each system and create differences in how competition manifests. The dissertation findings also signify the need for organizational legitimacy and pressure to conform to defining competition, further resonating with existing public-sector literature and institutional theories of organization. Despite the highly regulated nature of the Canadian health system, competition is present among hospitals, even when they are part of a single provincial corporation. Furthermore, despite important differences in the regulatory context, there are important similarities in how competition manifests and is perceived in the two provinces studied. The drivers of this competition hold important implications for how health policies can stimulate positive competition and avoid destructive types of competition.

Keywords: Comparative Health Systems Case-Studies
Continuous Quality Improvement
Health Economics Policy
Health System Design Governance
Health System Performance Benchmarking
Hospital Competition Strategy Reputation
Advisor: Brown, Adalsteinn
The Politics Behind and the Value of Outbound Student Mobility: Is Canada Missing the Boat?

Between 2005 and 2017, outbound student mobility (OSM)—study abroad—increasingly became part of government policy across Europe and the G7 countries. Canada, however, was absent from this OSM policy movement. Instead, its national and provincial governments concentrated on attracting and retaining international students. This study explores Canada’s absence by examining the OSM policy process and the values attributed to OSM by policymakers in key ministries as well as leaders in key advocacy groups. An international comparative study, it comprises six jurisdictions: Canadian federal level, Ontario, Quebec, Germany, England, and France (the latter three as OSM public policy leaders). OSM from a public policy perspective is a virtually unexplored area in internationalization and higher education research. To understand the politics behind and the value of outbound student mobility, this mixed-methods study analyzes 1,940 policy and advocacy documents as well as interview data from 74 participants. It scrutinizes OSM issue-attention at the agenda-setting stage of the policy cycle and uses social discourse analysis to examine the extent to which OSM value-conceptions can be situated within neoliberalism, realism, and/or cosmopolitanism. Notably, it sectorally orients and conceptually differentiates policy and advocacy communities, and renews with societal value-goals as public policy drivers. Findings show that within Canada, the federal level conceptualized OSM as a value for the collective and was outward-looking, while the subnational jurisdictions (responsible for higher education) conceptualized it as a value for the individual and were inward-looking. Importantly, the federal and Ontario governments included a no-value OSM conceptualization. Conversely, each of the leading OSM jurisdictions in Europe overwhelmingly conceptualized OSM as a value for the collective, firmly anchored it historically, and was outward-looking. Finally, for policymakers, this study suggests three elements are needed to successfully implement OSM public policy jurisdictionally: a champion within government, target setting, and systems-level data collection.

Keywords: comparative education
higher education
international education
international student mobility
public policy
study abroad
Advisor: Jones, Glen A.