Acadia University

Meal replacement beverages (MRBs) are consumed by a wide variety of consumers for different reasons. This study evaluated how younger adults (n = 62; aged 18–35) and older adults (n = 63; aged 65 or older) perceive MRBs. The participants started by identifying how they define MRBs. Then, the participants evaluated the sensory properties of five different chocolate‐flavored MRBs using hedonic scales and the check‐all‐that‐apply (CATA) method. Participants also identified which factors were important when consuming and purchasing MRBs. The participants highlighted that MRBs should be filling (high satiety) and have nutritional benefits. Both groups of consumers separated the MRBs based on their ingredients (plant‐based or dairy‐based) and liked MRBs that were sweet, chocolatey, creamy, and salty. The older adults’ liking decreased due to the perception of astringency, while younger adults’ liking decreased due to bitterness and off‐flavors. The older adults also placed greater importance on fiber content, diabetic friendly, satiety, and calcium content than the younger adults, while the younger adults were interested in plant‐based and vegan MRBs more so than the older adults. Overall, the sensory perception and hedonic liking were similar between the two groups, but their consumption factors differed. Practical Application Understanding consumption, as well as younger and older adults’ sensory perception of MRBs, should allow the food industry to create new varieties of MRBs that are well‐liked by consumers of different ages. Furthermore, this study identified how consumers currently conceptualize MRBs and why they consume or are interested in MRBs.

While poverty metrics typically capture incidence, they do not necessarily incorporate vulnerability, which we define as the conditional probability that an individual may become poor. Consequently, there is a dearth of measures that report exposure to poverty - i.e., the inclusion of both the incidence and vulnerability to poverty. To address this issue, in addition to measuring the current state of poverty, we estimate an individual’s conditional expectation of income, along with their vulnerability to poverty, using the 2016 Canadian Survey of Financial Security. Results suggest that almost 13 percent of respondents were in poverty at the time of survey, and just over 2 percent were persistently poor. However, among the non-poor, almost 16 percent were highly vulnerable to poverty. Thus, existing measures of poverty mask the fact that a non-trivial number of non-poor individuals are vulnerable to poverty. When accounting for poverty incidence and vulnerability, we estimate that almost one-quarter of Canadians were highly exposed to poverty. Therefore, we argue that, in addition to targeting current levels of poverty, policy-makers should also be cognizant of the high level of vulnerability and exposure to poverty, particularly among non-poor individuals, when designing poverty reduction strategies. Further, an awareness of the correlates regarding increased poverty exposure is required, and our regression estimates suggest that a rising level of consumer debt is of particular concern.

Seabirds are frequently infected by avian influenza virus (AIV), which prior to 2021 primarily consisted of low-pathogenic AIV with limited reports of disease during infection. However, since highly pathogenic AIV (HPAIV) H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b was introduced to North America in late 2021, HPAIV outbreaks in seabirds have occurred in multiple regions, with high levels of morbidity and mortality in many species. While monitoring active viral infections is critical for tracking disease burden, monitoring prior viral exposure via antibody detection in species that experienced large outbreaks is important for identifying individual- and population-level impacts of AIV on immunity and survival. We capitalized on ongoing egg collection programmes to assess the prevalence of antibodies against AIV nucleoprotein (NP) and hemagglutinin subtype 5 (H5) in 523 eggs collected in 2022 and 2023 from 11 seabird species that breed in the northwestern Atlantic, including primarily samples from eastern Canada and two from western Iceland. The prevalence of AIV antibodies in eggs varied across regions, species and years. American common eider (Somateria mollissima dresseri) eggs had the highest AIV antibody prevalence compared to sympatric species in 2023. Longitudinal samples were available for northern gannets (Morus bassanus) and American herring gulls (Larus argentatus smithsoniansus) at several sites, where the prevalence of anti-NP and anti-H5 antibodies increased from 2022 to 2023. Examining AIV antibody prevalence in seabird eggs can be a useful tool to investigate population-level AIV exposure, while we acknowledge our limited understanding of differential antibody waning rates and the relationship between titre and susceptibility.

This study explores the dynamic interplay between internationalisation and innovation in SMEs, focusing on how different internationalisation pathways affect innovation. Using a dataset of Canadian SMEs, we employ cluster analysis to categorise firms based on their internationalisation pathways—defined by their scale, scope, timing, and pace—and regression analysis to examine the impact on innovation performance. Our findings show that scale-focused and scope-focused internationalisation significantly enhances innovation compared to domestic-only firms. By identifying five distinct pathways, this study provides a more nuanced understanding of how internationalisation drives SME innovation. It highlights the multifaceted nature of internationalisation’s role in fostering innovation by moving beyond simple measures or types of internationalisation and using multiple measures of innovation. These insights have valuable implications for SME owners, managers, and policymakers aiming to support SME growth through global expansion.

Improving the efficiency of population monitoring and conservation programs is beneficial, so long as the accuracy of the information collected is not diminished. The need to expeditiously estimate the population size of seabird colonies is especially acute during mass mortality events when aerial surveys can provide information quickly on the extent of effects and total mortality. In 2022, the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus caused outbreaks at most Northern Gannet Morus bassanus colonies worldwide, killing tens of thousands of gannets in eastern Canada. In this study, we evaluated the accuracy and efficiency of a semiautomated method using the free software CountEm for counting Northern Gannet nests by reanalyzing 13 years of aerial photographs from past population surveys (2009–2020 and 2022). The CountEm program uses a geometric sampling method which overlays a grid of quadrats onto photographs in which the user counts objects of interest. We developed a protocol that generated population estimates that are accurate enough to support population management objectives (i.e., within 2%–5% of manual counts) and outline additional ways to improve CountEm accuracy. Additionally, using CountEm was 1100% more efficient than manually counting based on counting time. Since CountEm relies on human identification of objects to be counted, our methods, results, and conclusions are transferable to any taxa that form large aggregations and can be identified and counted in photographs.

There is growing interest to include exercise into healthcare for the prevention, treatment, and management of chronic disease. However, what defines an “exercise professional” to fulfil these roles and responsibilities is not clear across Canada. While exercise science often integrates exercise professionals within academic studies to assist exercise-based research, exploring how exercise professionals are involved in these contexts may contribute to developing a clearer understanding of how these professionals may be characterized. The purpose of this narrative review was to summarize how exercise professionals are described in research and identify the components that inform their unique roles. A keyword search of “exercise professional” was performed in multiple databases, including Medline, SportDiscus, and Web of Science to identify peer-reviewed studies that included “exercise professionals”. Fifteen studies were included, and two independent reviewers performed a reflexive thematic analysis to derive three themes that represent how exercise professionals were described: (1) job title; (2) roles/duties (e.g., fitness testing, motivational interviewing), and (3) education/qualifications/credentials. Common occupations involved in research included exercise physiologists, kinesiologists, and personal trainers. Exercise professionals were responsible for interacting with clinical and non-clinical populations in a variety of contexts. Similarly, qualifications varied, with some studies specifying further training to work with special populations (e.g., patients who have cancer). By identifying these discrepancies, this study highlights the need to develop consistent definitions and roles to promote recognition and integration of exercise professionals in both clinical and community settings.

Food images generated using artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming more common in research, and in the everyday world. The objective of this study was to identify how consumers' perception of a food image (AI‐generated or a genuine image), influenced their perception and emotional response to the food. Participants ( n = 154) were asked to look at ten different images (five were AI‐generated and five were genuine (referred to as standard images)) of food items common to those living in Atlantic Canada. The participants were asked to evaluate their willingness to consume, the healthiness, the naturalness, the appeal, and their perception of AI use for each image. The study also assessed their emotional response to the images. The results found the participants were able to identify when an image was created using an AI generator. The participants' perception of AI was negatively correlated to participants' willingness to consume the food product, as well as their perception of the healthiness, naturalness, and appeal of the product. Furthermore, the participants' emotional response was different when evaluating AI generated images compared to standard images. The results highlight the use of AI‐generated images in surveys can influence the participants perception, but this topic needs to be further explored in future studies.

Physicians and other healthcare professionals experience a high risk of burnout, especially during infectious disease epidemics. A longitudinal survey of physicians in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted to assess various risk factors for burnout in the context of a pandemic. We draw from the multi-level model of clinician burnout. This paper focuses on the association between personal coping practices (sleep, mindfulness, gratitude) and burnout indices, as well as the contribution of between-person and within-person effects of personal practices on reducing burnout. Participants were physicians practicing in Canada with a full, provisional, or post-graduate in-training license. The survey was distributed beginning on May 13, 2020, and data was collected monthly for 5 months. Measured personal coping practices included average hours of sleep and days practicing gratitude or mindfulness during the preceding week. Study hypotheses were tested using three multilevel multiple-regression models. One extra hour of sleep was associated with a 0.19 to 0.40 unit (between-subjects) decrease in exhaustion on a five-point scale. Hours of sleep was a consistent predictor of cynicism at the between-subjects (95% CI -0.08, -0.52) and within-subjects (95% CI -0.06, -0.26). Gratitude was a significant predictor of efficacy at the between-subjects level. As days of gratitude increased by one, efficacy increased by 0.02 to 0.19 points on a 5-point scale. This study demonstrated sleep is an important protective factor against burnout. Individuals who sleep more than their colleagues had less burnout symptoms and increasing sleep on an individual level was associated with reductions in burnout. Trial Registration: NCT04379063.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is the prevailing framework that has informed efforts in dietetics to redress racism. Although EDI has strengths, it has several weaknesses that ultimately hinder progress on racism in the profession. In this paper, we present racial justice as an alternative framework that, we assert, engenders more meaningful, purposive, and politically critical language, analysis, and action to redress racism and White supremacy.

In celebration of the 55th anniversary of Management Learning, we critically examine the journal’s role in fostering discourse at the intersection of management education and mental health. By tracing the historical engagement with mental health in the journal, we reveal gaps and opportunities for further exploration while recognizing the previous efforts that have been made by fellow researchers . Our hope is to catalyze this conversation in order to challenge stigma while emphasizing innovative approaches to enhance learning environments that support mental health of both educators and students.

A concise, transition metal-free four-step synthetic pathway has been developed for the synthesis of tetracyclic heterosteroidal compounds, 14-aza-12-oxasteroids, starting from readily available 2-naphthol analogues. After conversion of 2-naphthols to 2-naphthylamines by the Bucherer reaction, subsequent selective C-acetylation was achieved via the Sugasawa reaction and reduction of the acetyl group using borohydride, which resulted into the corresponding amino-alcohols. The naphthalene-based amino-alcohols underwent double dehydrations and double intramolecular cyclization with oxo-acids leading to one-pot formation of a C-N bond, a C-O bond and an amide bond in tandem, to generate two additional rings completing the steroidal framework. A series of 14-aza-12-oxasteroids were synthesized using our developed synthetic strategy in moderate yields, and the structure of one of the final products, 12a-Methyl-11-phenyl-11,12a-dihydro-1H-naphtho[2,1-d]pyrrolo[2,1-b][1,3]oxazin-3(2H)-one, was further confirmed by single crystal X-ray crystallography.

Strict maternal inheritance of mitochondria is known to be the rule in animals, but over 100 species across six orders of bivalves possess doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) of mitochondria. Under DUI, two distinctive sex-specific mitogenomes coexist. In marine and freshwater mussels, each mitogenome has an additional protein-coding gene, called female- and male-specific open reading frame or forf and morf, respectively. The function(s) of the associated FORF and MORF proteins remain unknown. Herein, we show that these proteins present similar tissue expression patterns in two distantly related DUI species: MORF was only expressed in male gonads, whereas FORF was expressed in all tissues of both sexes in the marine mussel Mytilus edulis and the freshwater mussel Venustaconcha ellipsiformis. Moreover, MORF was only expressed during the reproductive season, while FORF presented no clear seasonality pattern in M. edulis. Immunocytochemistry revealed the presence of both proteins in mitochondria and acrosomes of late spermatids and mature sperm. We hypothesize that MORF has a key function in spermatogenesis, while FORF has a more general function in both sexes. We also propose that both proteins may be involved in the fertilization process. The involvement of MORF in paternal mitochondrial transmission is also discussed.

At least since Aristotle defined human beings as “political animals,” politics in the Western tradition has largely been defined in anthropocentric terms. Politics was a realm of distinctively human endeavors, while nonhuman nature remained outside. Nature might impinge on or set limits to political action, but was conceived as constitutively outside of politics. However else nonhuman entities might engage with humans or each other, these relations or engagements were not understood as political. Until quite recently, Western political theory was decidedly anthropocentric. The rise of environmental problematics, and particularly the political salience of the global climate crisis, however, have made the idea of a constitutive separation between (nonhuman) nature and (human) politics less tenable. Not only the material manipulation of the nonhuman world, but also its conceptual framing, are increasingly understood as political projects. ¹ At the same time, Western political thought has become increasingly open to non-Western cosmologies that do not posit a rigid divide between human and non- (or more-than-) human worlds. Environmental (or green) political theory has become an increasingly robust subdiscipline, ² and political theory, like a number of other humanities disciplines, has undergone an “animal turn.” ³ Three of the four recent books under consideration form part of this latter animal turn while Sharon Krause’s Eco-Emancipation is firmly situated in the field of environmental political theory.

Objective: We examined whether hangover-related rumination—repeatedly dwelling on negative aspects of yesterday’s drinking while hungover the following morning—predicts changes in three dimensions of heavy episodic drinking (HED) over time. Method: N = 334 emerging adults (aged 19–29) from three Eastern Canadian universities who had recently experienced a hangover completed online self-report questionnaires at baseline (Wave 1) and 30 days later (Wave 2; 71.6% retention). HED was assessed in frequency (number of HED episodes), perceptions (how participants perceived the extent of their heavy drinking), and quantity (greatest number of alcoholic drinks consumed in a single HED episode) over the past 2 weeks. Results: Levels of HED frequency, perceptions, and quantity declined overall from Waves 1 to 2. Exploratory factor analysis established two factors of hangover-related rumination: intrusiveness (unwanted thoughts about the previous night’s drinking) and regret (desire to change future drinking behavior). Structural equation models revealed that intrusiveness at Wave 1 predicted the maintenance of higher frequency and perceptions of HED at Wave 2, even as these HED measures were generally declining; regret at Wave 1 also predicted the maintenance of HED perceptions at Wave 2. Neither Wave 1 hangover rumination factor predicted changes in HED quantity at Wave 2. Models controlled Wave 1 variables, including the relevant HED outcome, overall hangover severity, total number of hangovers, generalized anxiety symptoms, sex, age, and data collection site. Conclusion: Hangover-related rumination factors are associated with the maintenance of higher HED frequency (intrusiveness factor) and HED perceptions (intrusiveness and regret factors), suggesting risk for problematic alcohol consumption.