Social Sciences And Humanities Research Council Research Articles

Analyzing scenarios and designing initiatives toward just transitions: coproducing knowledge with(in) the dried fish sector in the Indian Sundarbans

The south-western fringe of the Indian Sundarbans hosts a number of fish drying collectives that are exposed to a bundle of mutually reinforcing social-ecological-institutional risks. Despite its wide contribution to local-regional food security and livelihoods, dried fish production has received little attention in research and policy circles so far. As part of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) sponsored Dried Fish Matters global partnership project, our research team seeks to address this lack in two ways: (i) delineating knowledge base through a systematic literature review on intersecting social-ecological and sociohydrological dimensions of integrated fisheries and fish drying practices, and (ii) employing a knowledge co-production approach that involves participation of dry-fishers, researchers, fishworkers' forum (partner organization), and scientists for meaningful understandings about the constraints and potentials in the sector. In this essay, we applied a three-step methodology to arrive at a crisscrossing conceptual, empirical, and collective understandings on the 'invisible' dried fish value chain in the Indian Sundarbans. With detailed lessons from the field, our interdisciplinary research team acts as a liaison among the groups to build a collaborative space for interactions, recognize prevalent adaptive practices and identify pathways toward short-, intermediate-, and long-term co-interventions through which fish drying practices can be more effectively improvised upon and up scaled. The essay lays out detailed insights and sensible recommendations from the knowledge co-production workshop, organized as a part of solution-focused participatory research on climate-resilient and gender-aware dried fish practices in the Indian Sundarbans. In light of the collective observations on the complex problems and reflections on needs-driven initiatives, the authors advocate for collaborative research praxes in forging just transitions for the less explored dried fish sector.

Contributors

Ilana M. Blumberg is professor of English literature at Bar Ilan University in Israel and author, most recently, of the memoir Open Your Hand: Teaching as a Jew, Teaching as an American (2018). She has won teaching awards from University of Pennsylvania and Michigan State University and is currently a recipient of an Israel Science Foundation grant entitled Postsecular George Eliot.Rosalind Buckton-Tucker studied at King's College, London, and the University of Leicester, UK, and holds a PhD in American literature. Her main research interests are twentieth-century British and American literature, travel literature, and the pedagogy of literature and creative writing, and she has published a variety of articles and book chapters in these fields as well as presenting numerous papers at international conferences. She has taught in universities in Kuwait, Oman, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran, and has also worked as a freelance journalist and editor in the UAE and Oman. She enjoys writing fiction, memoirs, and travel articles.Elizabeth Effinger is associate professor of English at the University of New Brunswick, where she teaches British Romanticism with special interests in William Blake, the intersections of Romantic science and literature, the Anthropocene, and human-animal studies. She coedited (with Chris Bundock) William Blake's Gothic Imagination: Bodies of Horror (2018). She was principal investigator of Erasing Frankenstein, a SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council)-funded public humanities outreach activity that transformed Shelley's 1818 novel into a book-length erasure poem in collaboration with incarcerated and nonincarcerated citizens. For more on the project, visit erasingfrankenstein.org.Moira Fitzgibbons is professor of English at Marist College. Her most recent work includes an edition of “The Merchant's Tale” in The Medieval Disability Sourcebook (2020).Michael Keenan Gutierrez is teaching associate professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Trench Angel (2015) and his work appears in the Guardian, the Delmarva Review, the Collagist, Scarab, the Pisgah Review, Untoward, the Boiler, Crossborder, and Public Books.Angela Laflen teaches digital rhetoric and professional writing at California State University, Sacramento. Her work has appeared in Computers and Composition and Assessing Writing, among other venues.Laci Mattison is assistant professor at Florida Gulf Coast University in the Department of Language and Literature, where she teaches courses on twentieth-century, Victorian, and contemporary literature. She is one of the general editors for Bloomsbury's Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism series. For this series, she has coedited volumes on Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze. Alongside Derek Ryan, she has also coedited a special issue of Deleuze Studies titled Deleuze, Virginia Woolf, and Modernism (2013) and has published articles and book chapters on Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, H. D., Mulk Raj Anand, and Vladimir Nabokov.Kelly Neil is professor of English at Spartanburg Methodist College, a small liberal arts institution located in the upstate of South Carolina. She received her PhD in English literature from the University of California, Davis, where she studied early modern literature and gender. She has published in such journals as Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies and This Rough Magic. She is currently coediting a collection of essays on teaching Shakespeare to nonmajors.Sarah Ann Singer is assistant professor in the Department of English at University of Central Florida. Her work appears in College English, Technical Communication Quarterly, Journal of Medical Humanities, and Peitho.Rachel Tait-Ripperdan is associate librarian at Florida Gulf Coast University. She received her master's degree in library science from Florida State University and her master's degree in history from Florida Gulf Coast University. She serves as library liaison to the Departments of Language and Literature, History, Communication, Philosophy, and Religion. Her research interests include information literacy instruction, collection development, and graphic novels and manga in the academic classroom.Theresa Tinkle (she/her/hers) is a medievalist by training, a teacher committed to supporting students’ development and ambitions, and a disability studies scholar. Her most recent book is Gender and Power in Medieval Exegesis (2010). She has published widely on medieval English and Latin literature, gender, religion, and manuscript culture. She is currently director of the Gayle Morris Sweetland Center for Writing at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is engaged in antiracist work, writing to learn, writing in the disciplines, and writing program assessment.

741 Sleep and postpartum depression in healthy fathers: Perceptions of sleep quality predict severity of symptoms

Abstract Introduction Research on the link between sleep quality and depression in the postpartum period has focused primarily on mothers. Although fathers also experience poorer postpartum sleep and are at risk of developing depressive symptoms, they remain understudied. To date, the limited research focusing on paternal sleep and depression has relied on subjective measures of sleep, without objective verification. The current study implemented a multi-measure approach using subjective and objective indices to explore the relationship between sleep and depressive symptoms in fathers at 6 months postpartum. Methods Fifty-four healthy fathers participated in this cross-sectional study. Paternal sleep was assessed for 2 weeks utilizing: 1) a self-report daily sleep diary, 2) a self-report perceived sleep quality rating, and 3) actigraphy. Subjective indices via the sleep diary measured participants’ perception of their total nocturnal sleep duration and total number of awakenings (self-reported sleep duration and fragmentation). Perceived sleep quality ratings measured participants’ perceptions of how well they thought they slept. Objective sleep variables measured through actigraphy included: total nocturnal sleep duration, number of awakenings, sleep efficiency, and wake after sleep onset (WASO). Paternal depressive symptoms were assessed with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D). Results Regression analyses showed that subjective sleep variables (measured by the sleep diary) and objective sleep variables (measured by actigraphy) did not significantly predict postpartum depressive symptoms in fathers (p > .05). However, self-reported perceived sleep quality significantly predicted postpartum depressive symptom severity in fathers (R2 = .172, p = .034). Conclusion These findings advance our understanding of the link between sleep and depression in fathers. The results highlight the important role of fathers’ perceptions of sleep quality, rather than the actual quality or quantity of their sleep (measured through the sleep diary or actigraphy), in the development of postpartum depressive symptoms. The multi-measure approach to sleep implemented in this study expanded our knowledge about how different facets of sleep relate to depression. These findings have important implications for the development of clinical interventions targeting paternal sleep and mood in the months following childbirth. Support (if any) Social-Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS)

Building Better Together: Exploring Indigenous Economic Development in New Brunswick Report

With support from an Indigenous Research Capacity and Reconciliation Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), this project brought together 130 front-line representatives from Indigenous communities, organizations, and businesses with those from academia and relevant provincial and federal departments for a Mawi’omi (meaning ‘gathering’ in Mi’kmaq) in May 2019 to explore the question, "What does Indigenous economic development mean to Indigenous Peoples living in New Brunswick?", and attempts to identify obstacles, opportunities, and priorities to achieve these development goals. Important factors identified as key to successful community development are self-sufficiency, self-sustainability, and long-term stability. Key priorities for economic development were the creation of employment opportunities and the development of workforce skills, as well as the development of lands and infrastructure for economic development, while key opportunities were the cannabis, tourism, natural resources, and renewable resource sector. In addition, key challenges to the pursuit of Indigenous economic development are identified: financing, human resources, and social issues. Also highlighted was the need for more meaningful and respectful relations with government and the private sector. The research concluded with several recommendations: to SSHRC, continue to offer annual grants specifically for Indigenous communities and organizations, to support the creation of diverse research products relating to Indigenous economic development, and to create or support a platform to share information and resources relating to Indigenous economic development; to the federal government, increase funding for economic development for First Nation communities and Indigenous organizations; to the provincial government, create a task force to increase the inclusion of First Nation communities and Indigenous Peoples in the tourism, cannabis, natural resource, and renewable energy sectors; and to First Nation Communities in New Brunswick: develop strategies to support self-determination, self-sufficiency, and economic development.

Opening up research in social sciences

The Open Research Area (ORA) for Social Sciences is an international initiative that provides social science research funding and support. It was founded in 2010 by members of the Bonn Group and based on agreement by European social science funding bodies The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), France, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK, and the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada, later joined, as well as the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) as an associate member. ORA facilitates collaborative social sciences research by bringing together researchers from participating countries. Researchers from the partner countries who fulfil the eligibility criteria of their national funding organisation apply to the ORA office handling the year's applications and Japanese researchers submit their applications to JSPS Tokyo. ORA accepts applications from all areas of the social sciences and there is a key focus on supporting young researchers at the beginning of their careers, helping them to extend the reach of their work and network on an international scale. Ultimately, ORA exists to drive forward high-quality research and strengthen international collaboration in social sciences research. So far, five rounds of ORA have been successfully completed, with more than 60 international collaborative proposals funded across diverse social sciences fields, including political science, economics, empirical social science, psychology, geography, urban planning and education science.

A “Leaky” Pipeline and Chilly Climate in Archaeology in Canada

This article quantifies the rate at which women archaeologists are present and retained in university departments. Drawing on publicly available data, we examine gender representation in (1) doctorates earned between 2002–2003 and 2016–2017; (2) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant applications and awards at the doctoral to senior levels between 2003 and 2017; (3) tenure-stream faculty at Canadian universities in 2019; and (4) placement of Canadian PhDs in the United States. These data demonstrate that women today represent two-thirds of all Canadian doctorates in archaeology, but only one-third of Canadian tenure-stream faculty, although not all archaeologists choose an academic career. In the last 15 years, women with Canadian PhDs have been hired into tenure-track positions in Canada at rates statistically lower than men, but at higher rates in the United States. Women apply for SSHRC archaeology grants in equal proportion to their presence, but men are awarded at a slightly higher rate. We end by discussing the possible reasons for this gendered attrition, including a “chilly climate”—that is, subtle practices that stereotype, exclude, and devalue women, as well as inhospitable working environments, particularly for primary caregivers. We warn that the current COVID-19 pandemic is likely to exacerbate these existing inequalities.

Opening up research in social sciences

The Open Research Area (ORA) for Social Sciences is an international initiative that provides social science research funding and support. It was founded in 2010 by members of the Bonn Group and based on agreement by European social science funding bodies The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), France, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK, and the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada, later joined, as well as the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) as an associate member. ORA facilitates collaborative social sciences research by bringing together researchers from participating countries. Researchers from the partner countries who fulfil the eligibility criteria of their national funding organisation apply to the ORA office handling the year's applications and Japanese researchers submit their applications to JSPS Tokyo. ORA accepts applications from all areas of the social sciences and there is a key focus on supporting young researchers at the beginning of their careers, helping them to extend the reach of their work and network on an international scale. Ultimately, ORA exists to drive forward high-quality research and strengthen international collaboration in social sciences research. So far, five rounds of ORA have been successfully completed, with more than 60 international collaborative proposals funded across diverse social sciences fields, including political science, economics, empirical social science, psychology, geography, urban planning and education science.

Philosophical Questions about Teaching Philosophy: What's at Stake in High School Philosophy Education?

What is at stake in high school philosophy education, and why? Why is it a good idea to teach philosophy at this level? This essay seeks to address some issues that arose in revising the Ontario grade 12 philosophy curriculum documents, significant insights from philosophy teacher education, and some early results of recent research funded by the federal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in Canada. These three topics include curricular disputes, stories of transformation from philosophy student to philosophy teacher, and preliminary research findings. All underscore the importance and complexity of philosophy education, as well as its challenges and benefits, including the cross-curricular benefits philosophy education imparts to the study of other subject areas. Collectively, these serve as a springboard for asking some larger and broader philosophical questions about the teaching and learning of philosophy, and they demonstrate that this is a promising new area of study and of teaching for philosophers of education. I will raise some questions about philosophy that will help frame the next stage in the SSHRC research into the teaching and learning of philosophy in Ontario, and which I contend are new and fundamental questions to ask about philosophy itself.

Using a multiliteracies approach to foster critical and creative pedagogies for adult learners

Drawing upon a pilot study and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight research study to explore how a multiliteracies framework may inform more critical and creative pedagogical approaches for adolescents and adults, this article begins with a brief overview of the literature on multiliteracies and then overviews the methodology used in the two research studies. Although multiliteracies has not been used frequently as a theoretical framework to inform work in adult learning contexts, this article argues that there are many benefits to this approach for adult educators to consider, particularly given the increasing need to attend to learning issues pertaining to globalization, diversity, and the impact of new technologies. Data from the interviews are combined with an analysis of the literature to explore the benefits offered by a multiliteracies approach by considering four main areas: lifelong learning and multimodalities; opportunities for engagement for English as Additional Language learners; new digital technologies and multiliteracies; and multiliteracies’ emphasis on social justice. The article concludes with a consideration of the potential for multiliteracies to inform educators working in a range of adult learning contexts.

Advancing Indigenous Research Sovereignty: Public Administration Trends and the Opportunity for Meaningful Conversations in Canadian Research Governance

Federally funded research in Canada is of significant scope and scale. The implications of research in the colonial project has resulted in a fraught relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Western research. Research governance, as an aspect of public administration, is evolving. The relationality inherent in new public governance (NPG)—a nascent public governance regime—may align with Indigenous relationality concepts. Recent societal advances, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission of Canada (TRC), and the Indigenous Institutes Act in Ontario, provide further impetus for Indigenous self-determination in multiple domains including research. This article advocates for Indigenous research sovereignty and concludes with suggestions for ways in which federal funding agencies, specifically the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), could contribute to the advancement of Indigenous research sovereignty.

Open Access and Academic Journals in Canada: A Political Science Perspective

AbstractThe push to implement Open Access (OA) as the new standard for academic research dissemination is creating very real pressures on academic journals. In Canada, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) recently adopted a policy requiring that journals applying for its Aid to Scholarly Journals (ASJ) grant make their scholarly content freely accessible after no more than a 12-month delay. For journals such as the Canadian Journal of Political Science (CJPS) that not only publish high-quality, peer-reviewed articles to a specialized audience but also support the work of scholarly associations through the revenues they generate, the push to move to OA comes with a number of challenges. The Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) and the Société québécoise de science politique (SQSP) established a committee to chart the best course of action for the CJPS in light of this changing landscape. This article summarizes the key findings of the committee and underscores some of the challenges of OA for journals with a profile similar to the CJPS, as well as for the broader research ecosystem that they support.

Manitoba Law Journal: Criminal Law Edition (Robson Crim) 2019 Volume 42(3), Special Issue

We are thrilled to bring you the latest edition of the Criminal Law Special Edition of the Manitoba Law Journal. Academics, students and the practicing bench and bar continue to access this publication and contribute to it their knowledge and experience in the criminal law. The fact that we have, once again, elected to publish a double volume is a testament to the quality of submissions we have received over the last twelve months. We present twenty-five articles from twenty-nine authors, highlighting the work of some of Canada’s leading criminal law, criminological and criminal justice academics. The Manitoba Law Journal remains one of the most important legal scholarship platforms in Canada with a rich history of hosting criminal law analyses.1 With the help of our contributors, the Manitoba Law Journal was recently ranked second out of thirty-one entries in the Law, Government and Politics category of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). We continue to be committed to open access scholarship and our readership grows with each Criminal Law Special Edition released.

Introduction -- Broadening Teacher Candidates’ Horizons: An Introduction to the Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program

The Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program (RLP) is a collaborative initiative between the University of Windsor (UW), Canada, Southwest University (SWU), China, in partnership with Greater Essex County District School Board and Chinese schools associated with SWU. The program, founded in 2010 through SWU Teacher Education fund and UW Strategic Priority Fund with in-kind contributions from Greater Essex County District School Board, is designed to provide an exceptional experience with international engagement, to broaden teacher candidates’ horizons for a society of increasing diversity, to foster international collaboration among faculty members who are interested in cross-cultural studies and multicultural education, and to enhance the international reputation of the University of Windsor (Xu, 2011a). The RLP is one of the foundational programs which provide research contexts and settings for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant Project entitled “Reciprocal Learning in Teacher Education and School Education between Canada and China” (Xu & Connelly, 2013-2020).

Learning from Two‐Dimensional (2D) versus Three‐Dimensional Anatomical Models: Assessing Working Memory Requirements Using Electroencephalography (EEG)

Technological advances enabling presentation of content stereoscopically provide a new forum for instructional design in anatomy education that instructors are keen to explore. Studies comparing the effectiveness of learning from two‐dimensional (2D) versus three‐dimensional (3D) visualizations are limited by sole reliance on behavioural evidence like learner preferences and test performance. Though it is reasonable to assume that student performance on knowledge‐based tests is indicative of success, these tests fail to illuminate the subtleties of a learner's interaction with visualization tools in the process of learning. Quantitative measurement of the learning process through direct monitoring of neural processes offers an alternative means of assessment to compare learning 2D and 3D learning in anatomy. Frequency band oscillation activity measured by electroencephalography (EEG) may give direct insight into cognitive resources required during a learning task. Medial frontal theta (MFT) oscillations (4–8 Hz) have been shown to increase with increased working memory requirements. The aim of this study was to compare MFT neural activity as measured by EEG as participants learn from 2D versus 3D anatomical visualizations. MFT activity was compared as novice participants (n = 21) learned to identify and localize neuroanatomical structures using a reinforcement‐based learning paradigm. Participants learned from neuroanatomical models that were presented both with and without stereoscopic disparity using NVIDIA 3D Vision® 2 goggles while EEG data were collected. Data were processed using Brain Vision Analyzer 2 software and statistical analysis was performed using SPSS statistics. This study was approved by the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board at the University of Calgary (Ethics ID: REB14‐088). We found that MFT was greater when participants were viewing 3D models compared to 2D models (p < .05), indicating that greater working memory engagement is required to view 3D models. In the context of cognitive load theory (CLT), these findings are important for educators. If students are participating in a learning activity that uses 3D models (which requires greater working memory resources), then less free capacity remains in the total working memory to engage with the learning activity itself. Therefore when educators are designing learning activities that use 3D models, activities may have to be simplified or use techniques that promote germane load as a compensatory strategy to ensure successful learning.Support or Funding InformationThis research was supported by University of Calgary grants (competitive) awarded to the authors including: Teaching and Learning Grant; University Research Grants Committee (URGC) Seed Grant; and the Data and Technology Fund. SA would like to acknowledge scholarship funding provided by: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship; Alberta Innovates Health Solutions (AIHS) Graduate Studentship, and the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Doctoral Scholarship.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Evolution of Africa’s Intellectual Property Treaty Ratification Landscape

Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), UK Department for International Development (DFID), National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa

Quantifying Two Dimensional (2D) and Three Dimensional (3D) Anatomical Learning Using a Neuroeducational Approach

BackgroundAdvances in computer visualization enabling both 2D and 3D representation have generated tools to aid perception of spatial relationships and provide a new forum for instructional design. To date, studies examining the effectiveness of these educational tools have been comparative, using performance measurement as proxy variables for learning. A key knowledge gap in the field of health professional education is the lack of understanding of how the brain processes and learns from spatially presented content.ObjectiveTo use a reinforcement‐based learning activity to assess learning with 2D and 3D (stereoscopic) anatomical representations by comparing event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) as measured by electroencephalography (EEG).MethodsMean ERP waveforms of two ERP components, N250 (related to object perception) and reward positivity (related to learners responding to positive feedback), were compared as novice participants (n = 61) learned to identify and localize neuroanatomical structures. Participants learned from 2D, 3D or a combination of 2D and 3D models.ResultsN250 is significantly greater when participants view 3D versus 2D represented anatomical images. Behavioural learning curves and reward positivity did not differ based on model type used during initial learning. However, interleaved learning incorporating 2D and 3D models provided an advantage in retention and transfer activities represented by decreased reward positivity.ConclusionDespite the lack of difference in behavioural‐based learning efficiency outcomes for 2D versus 3D models, neural measures reveal new insights. Greater object recognition was noted for participants learning from 3D models and interleaved training using both 2D and 3D model types provides advantages for memory retention. These new insights should be kept in mind as educators are designing learning activities in the anatomical sciences. Validation of quantitative neurophysiological variables that measure learning will enable a direct measure of knowledge acquisition that can be used to strategically assess and optimize new forms of teaching, learning, and evaluation.Support or Funding InformationThis research was supported by University of Calgary grants (competitive) awarded to the authors including: Teaching and Learning Grant; University Research Grants Committee (URGC) Seed Grant; and the Data and Technology Fund. SA would like to acknowledge scholarship funding provided by: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship; Alberta Innovates Health Solutions (AIHS) Graduate Studentship, and the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Doctoral Scholarship.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Short and long-term impacts of an increase in graduate funding

This paper studies the short- and long-term impacts of an increase in merit-based scholarships with a novel data set containing 1114 recipients from the 2004 and 2005 doctoral competitions of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Using the scores received by recipients and the funding thresholds, I take advantage of a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal impact of an increase in scholarship amount on locational choice and career outcomes of recipients. First, I find no evidence that recipients are induced to remain in Canada when they are promised a larger scholarship if they study in Canada. Second, there is no evidence that receiving a larger scholarship affects the probability of PhD completion within either five or nine years. Third, there is some evidence that a larger scholarship does increase the probability of having a tenure-track academic position nine years after receiving the award by approximately 15 percentage points. This result only holds for students who were initially awarded the scholarship in their second year.

Identification of Dietary Patterns Associated with Chronic Disease Risk Using Hybrid Dimension Reduction Techniques: Evidence from the Canadian National Nutrition Survey

Analysing dietary patterns is an important approach for characterizing the complex relationships between foods and nutrients in etiology of obesity and other chronic diseases. Several studies have used a priori and data‐driven dimension reduction techniques for evaluating dietary patterns in relation to chronic disease risks, even though methods for applying these techniques to complex nationally‐representative nutrition surveys are not yet developed. The objective of this study was to define a novel algorithm for using hybrid dimension reduction techniques for identifying dietary patterns of Canadians most strongly associated with obesity and other chronic diseases (diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases) at the national population level. Dietary data were collected using 24‐hour dietary recalls (second recall in sub‐sample). All analyses included 11,748 participants (≥18 y) in the cross‐sectional nationally‐representative Canadian Community Health Survey 2.2 (2004/5). To ensure nationally‐representative estimates, weighting algorithm was incorporated into the partial least squares analyses (PLS), to derive an energy‐dense (ED), high‐fat (HF) and low fiber density (LFD) dietary pattern using 38 food groups. PLS is the most flexible hybrid technique for deriving dietary patterns enabling discovery of important disease‐specific dietary exposures that have not been previously identified in etiology of chronic diseases. The association of dietary patterns with obesity and chronic diseases was ascertained using weighted multinominal logistic regression‐GLM adjusted for the following covariates in successive models: age, sex, dietary misreporting, energy intakes, physical activity and smoking. Using the weighted PLS algorithm, an ED,HF,LFD dietary pattern was derived with high positive loadings for fast foods, carbonated drinks, refined grains and negative loadings for whole fruits, and vegetables (≥|0.17|). Food groups with a “high” loading were summed to form a simplified dietary pattern score. Moving from the first (healthiest) to the fourth (least healthy) quartiles of the ED,HF,LFD and the simplified dietary pattern scores was associated with increasingly elevated odds ratios (OR) for “obesity with at least one chronic disease” (diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases), with individuals in quartile 4 having an OR of 2.57 (95%CI:1.75,3.76) and 2.73 (1.88,3.98), respectively (p‐trend<0.0001). The associations of dietary patterns with “healthy obesity” (obesity without having a chronic disease) and “being non‐obese with at least one chronic disease” were weaker, albeit significant (p<0.05). Overall, consuming an ED,HF,LFD dietary pattern was associated with significantly higher risk of obesity with and without accompanying chronic diseases. Our findings demonstrated that novel techniques for deriving dietary patterns can be modified for successful use in nationally‐representative surveys. The weighted algorithm we defined in this research can be used for deriving dietary patterns associated with chronic diseases at the national population level, improving the applicability and use of novel dietary pattern techniques by governments and researchers.Support or Funding InformationThis research was supported by a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Innovation in Regulatory Science Award, and funds to the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) from the Social Science and Humanities research Council (SSHRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and Statistics Canada. M.J. was funded by a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Fellowship, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the CIHR/Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) Population Intervention for Chronic Disease Prevention (PICDP): A Pan‐Canadian Fellowship, Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) and the Faculty of Medicine Hunter Fellowship (University of Toronto). M.L. is the Earle W. McHenry professor and is supported through chair endowed unrestricted research funds, University of Toronto. Funders had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article.

The project for the study of dissidence and samizdat: an interview with Ann Komaromi

In fall 2015, Professor Ann Komaromi, one of Canada's leading scholars of Soviet unofficial culture and publishing, launched a new website titled Project for the Study of Dissidence and (http://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto.ca/). The project received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and other funding agencies, involved extensive collaboration with colleagues and organizations in several countries, and is governed by a peer-review process including an international editorial board of recognized specialists. Because it is important to find ways to engage with the digital humanities within traditional forums for scholarly discourse, the following interview aims to present this project and to highlight its significance and value for both the scholarly and the broader communities of interest.Allan Reid (AR): Ann, in November of 2015 you launched the Project for the Study of Dissidence and (PSDS). It consists of various components, including some that have existed for several years. Your project is conceived on a grand scale, but in a way which clearly allows for a staged development and for usability by scholars and students at all stages along the way. Could you walk me through the key steps in the journey which took you from more traditional forms of scholarship, such as journal and book publishing, where you have a well-established record, into this form of disseminating knowledge and information, as well as its archival (database) function.Ann Komaromi (AK): Samizdat was a topic that lent itself to thinking about alternative forms of publishing and doing networked projects. The people at the Memorial Society in Moscow had already produced a catalogue of samizdat for their website as part of their own History of Dissidence project, but they drew on a limited set of data, including what had been published by Radio Liberty in its samizdat documents series. The Open Society Archive, which houses the Radio Liberty samizdat archives, was interested in doing something much bigger, and we initially talked about partnering. It became clear over time, however, that thoroughly cataloguing even a small set such as the Soviet periodicals was a huge task, and that expanding it immediately was not possible.It seemed to me that there was great merit in making the information accessible in electronic format to the scholarly community and getting feedback. This was begun with the Database of Soviet Samizdat Periodicals, which I launched back in 2011. The next stage was to try to make rare editions themselves more available, and to attempt to create an engaging interface for more general users through timelines and interviews with dissidents, as I did for PSDS in 2015. Fortunately, there was grant support for this kind of dissemination, from SSHRC and other organizations, and interest from the University of Toronto Libraries. However, I always knew that analytical articles in established peer-reviewed journals and monograph book publications had to be done as well - the one did not replace the other.AR: You have partnered and collaborated with several key institutions and individuals, some of which, as you point out, maintain their own electronic websites and databases. Could you tell me a bit more about how PSDS differs from some of these, for example, the sites maintained by Memorial in Russia (http://www.memo. ru), or Rights in Russia (http://www.rightsinrussia.info/home) (http://www.hro.org), or the International Samizdat Research Association (http://www.samizdatportal.org/)?AK: Rights in Russia is an important site for news and views pertaining to rights in the Russian Federation today. Memorial in Russia, particularly the History of Dissidence project there, as well as the International Samizdat [Research] Association (IS[R] A), housed at the Open Society Archive in Budapest, have an historical focus, and that was the basis of our work together. …

Research Ethics Board (REB) Members’ Preparation for, and Perceived Knowledge of Research Ethics

The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS) was first developed to establish a standard of practice in research ethics by the three federal agencies responsible for funding institutional research in Canada: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In 2010, a second edition of the policy, known as the TCPS 2, was released with updated information and expanded coverage of research ethics issues. According to the TCPS 2, the Agencies’ mandate is “to promote research that is conducted according to the highest ethical standards,” and the TCPS 2 serves as a benchmark for this with respect for human dignity as its underlying value. Research institutions receiving Agency funding are to comply with this policy statement by forming Research Ethics Boards (REBs) to review all research involving human participants. The intention behind this review requirement is to provide a proportionate assessment of the benefit-to-risk ratio of the research, and in that process, to safeguard “respect for persons”, express a “concern for welfare”, and uphold “justice” (CIHR, SSHRC, NSERC 2010, p. 8). Research may not proceed until ethics approval is granted by an institution’s REB. The current study evaluates REB members’ perspectives on their knowledge of research ethics, and juxtaposes these perceptions with those of researchers. Specifically, we are interested in the extent to which REB members with less experience read the TCPS 2, and whether those with less experience have decreased confidence in their ethics knowledge.