Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Sami Pihlström argues that, for principled reasons, we have a duty not to listen to racists. Although this stance can seem admirable, I worry that by cutting itself off from evidence, a refusal to listen leaves wrongfully accused persons no means of exonerating themselves. Moreover, given that concepts like racism now encompass beliefs and acts that many rightly consider sensible, a policy of silence risks dismissing implausibly large numbers of people as immoral. Stressing that listening is not acquiescing, I urge Pihlström to think more carefully about the consequences of his stance, especially since it would increase the likelihood of conflict.

Framed by biological and environmental education, this paper addresses eight questions posed in Wild Pedagogies: Touchstones for Re-Negotiating Education and the Environment in the Anthropocene. These questions ponder more-than-human methodologies, positionality of the natural world, embedded anthropocentricism and research implications for the natural world. Wild pedagogues aim to reclaim and reimagine an educational system toward intentional praxis less reliant on quantifiable learning outcomes, with a move toward active, ‘‘self-willed pedagogy’’ with an agential nature as co-teacher. This bold enterprise challenges dominant Western-colonial paradigms rooted in power and control over nature and learners. My responses explore Tim Ingold’s notion of a ‘‘modest, humble, and attentive’’ science, ecocentric place-based research, questions dissection and animal experimentation, and offers Goethean science and Indigenous philosophy as alternatives to rational-reductionist Newtonian science. Lab-based science is contrasted with natural history, and creative, contemplative practice are suggested as tools of the wild researcher. How can we transform science education through the lenses of deep ecology and philosophical posthumanism? This paper contributes to the ongoing dialogue of ecological and environmental education during the Anthropocene, especially in regard to the life sciences and the often-unquestioned use of nonhuman animals in science teaching and research.

Dry direct seeding of rice has emerged as an effective method for reducing the excessive water demand associated with conventional rice transplantation, presenting significant potential for enhancing sustainability. However, this cultivation method is hindered by high seed usage and inconsistent, often low, seedling emergence. Seed priming, a pre-sowing treatment, has been employed to mitigate these issues, but the inconsistent effects of exogenous priming agents remain a concern. Currently, there is limited molecular-level information on the uneven seedling emergence and effective screening methods for priming agents. In this study, we employed a metabolomics approach using advanced chromatography and mass spectrometry technology to identify differential accumulation of metabolites (DAMs) in seeds with varying germination energies. The seed priming technique was also used to validate the identified DAMs. We investigated the proportion of different specific gravity seeds and the corresponding germination energy across 20 varieties and established a relationship between different specific gravity seeds and germination energy. Our results showed that seeds with high and low germination energy differed in several metabolites, including amino acids, organic acids, and others. We further confirmed the critical role of these DAMs in determining seed germination energy under dry direct seeding. This research provides valuable insights into the metabolic mechanisms associated with germination energy and offers a useful approach for screening effective endogenous seed priming agents.

During COVID, much of the world wore masks covering their lower faces to prevent the spread of disease. These masks cover lower facial features, but how vital are these lower facial features to the recognition of facial expressions of emotion? Going beyond the Ekman 6 emotions, in Study 1 (N = 372), we used a multilevel logistic regression to examine how artificially rendered masks influence emotion recognition from static photos of facial muscle configurations for many commonly experienced positive and negative emotions. On average, masks reduced emotion recognition accuracy by 17% percent for negative emotions and 23% for positive emotions. In Study 2 (N = 338), we asked whether these results generalised to multimodal full-body expressions of emotions, accompanied by vocal expressions. Participants viewed videos from a previously validated set, where the lower facial features were blurred from the nose down. Here, though the decreases in emotion recognition were noticeably less pronounced, highlighting the power of multimodal information, we did see important decreases for certain specific emotions and for positive emotions overall. Results are discussed in the context of the social and emotional consequences of compromised emotion recognition, as well as the unique facial features which accompany certain emotions.

Plant functional connectivity—the dispersal of plant propagules between habitat patches—is often ensured through animal movement. Yet, there is no quantitative framework to analyse how plant–animal interactions and the movement of seed dispersers influence community-level plant functional connectivity. We propose a trait-based framework to quantify plant connectivity with a model integrating plant–frugivore networks, animal-mediated seed-dispersal distances and the selection of target patches by seed dispersers. Using this framework, we estimated how network specialization, between-patch distance and resource diversity in a target patch affect the number and diversity of seeds dispersed to that patch. Specialized networks with a high degree of niche partitioning in plant–frugivore interactions reduced functional connectivity by limiting the diversity of seeds dispersed over long distances. Resource diversity in the target patch increased both seed number and diversity, especially in specialized networks and within short and intermediate distances between patches. Notably, resource diversity was particularly important at intermediate distances, where the number and diversity of seeds reaching a patch increased more strongly with resource diversity than at longer distances. Using a trait-based framework, we show that resource diversity in the target patch is a major driver of connectivity in animal-dispersed plant communities.

The sunk-cost effect (SCE) refers to the continuation of an activity after investing resources in the activity. Current developmental research on the SCE in childhood is mixed, but some researchers suggest that sunk-cost judgments decline with age after childhood. To better understand age differences in sunk-cost judgments across the lifespan, we conducted two experiments with the widest age range used in the literature thus far to examine the SCE across the lifespan, while using the same measures for all ages. Samples ranged from 2 to 97 years of age (Experiment 1: lab-based, N = 682; Experiment 2: community sample, N = 378). We found a similar pattern across both experiments: Adults and adolescents consistently made sunk-cost judgments, but children did not. We also observed differences in age patterns between different sunk-cost measures, suggesting that researchers should consider how individuals of different ages might respond to different decision-making vignettes. Our findings suggest that children do not consistently make sunk-cost judgments like older children and adults.

This chapter explores the concept of 2-normed groups, which are a generalization of 2-normed spaces, and provides examples of such groups including the discrete Heisenberg group with Python codes for computing the 2-norm on the mentioned group, the group of positive real numbers with multiplication, and the group of integer pairs with addition. The chapter also discusses the properties of 2-normed groups, such as the relationship between the 2-norm and the group operation. Furthermore, this chapter proposes a definition of a 2-Banach group, which is a 2-normed group in which every Cauchy sequence is convergent. The chapter concludes by proving several lemmas and theorems related to 2-normed groups, including the uniqueness of the limit of a convergent sequence and the relationship between the limit of a sequence and its 2-norm.

In the wake of the global pandemic, the education landscape has significantly shifted toward online and blended learning design and delivery. This chapter delves into the pressing issue of supporting faculty in effective online course design and delivery. It explores using an appreciative inquiry model as a strategic approach to supporting faculty development within the context of a Canadian post-secondary institution. Drawing inspiration from Waddington's (2022) seminal case study, which emphasized a strengths-based and reflective design, this chapter explores the impact of a pilot professional development experience designed to empower faculty members to navigate the complexities of online teaching and learning and course design in a post-pandemic era. This work aims to shed light on the efficacy of a strengths-based and reflective model in enhancing faculty development practices in blended and online course design. This chapter seeks to provide valuable insights into the potential of appreciative inquiry in fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation in online education through reflective course design. Furthermore, it aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on faculty development in the digital age and offer practical recommendations for institutions seeking to enhance their online learning environments through enhanced faculty development experiences post-pandemic.

Anthropogenic land use change facilitates disease emergence by altering the interface between humans and pathogen reservoirs and is hypothesized to drive pathogen evolution. Here, we show a positive association between land use change and the evolution and dispersal of Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) and Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV). We update the phylogeographies of EBOV and SUDV, which reveal that the most recent common ancestor of EBOV was circulating around 1960 in the forests of what is now the northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo, while the most recent common ancestor of SUDV was circulating around 1958 in the southern Sudanese savanna. Both landscapes underwent significant anthropogenic fragmentation between 1940 and 1960, associated with specific colonial “schemes,” which substantially altered local human settlement patterns and the surrounding vegetation to support intensive cash crop agriculture. Since these disturbances, landscape fragmentation was spatiotemporally associated with the divergence and dispersal of new variants of both viruses into new ecoregions of Africa. These variants segregated geographically along ecoregion boundaries, resembling a pattern observable for other bat‐borne viruses. The amino acid changes which characterized each variant disproportionately involved glycosylation‐sensitive amino acids in the surface glycoprotein domain responsible for immune evasion and attachment to host cells, suggesting adaptation to new hosts amidst changing landscapes. Our results show that land use change not only increases the risk of spillover, but also impacts the evolution of viruses themselves.

Challenges in student engagement have been identified as a significant barrier in online learning. In this study, we used a mixed method design to explore how often, and how effectively, instructors used a variety of engagement strategies in their online classrooms. First, through the use of student focus groups with 30 students, we identified engagement strategies that students used and found effective. Our results indicated that breakout rooms and interactive activities/games and icebreakers were the most frequently mentioned engagement strategies for synchronous courses and using WhatsApp and discussion forums were mentioned for asynchronous courses. Next, a total of 284 undergraduate students (84% female) took part in an online survey consisting of 33 engagement strategies in which participants rated how often the strategy was used and how effective they found it. Descriptive analyses demonstrated that students most frequently used strategies centered on structure (i.e. grading rubrics, course orientations, and instructor/peer discussion forums that enable interactions). Students reported that the most effective strategies were those that focused on clarity (i.e. posting of due dates, grading rubrics, and regular emails from the instructor). Interestingly, while peer relations were predominantly discussed in the focus groups, peer-to-peer connection strategies in the survey received the lowest ratings, both in terms of how often they were used and how effective students found them. Overall, our results suggest that students consider clarity to be the most effective method for raising engagement and that instructor relations appear to be more beneficial than peer relations.

Narratives inform policymaking by building consensus, stabilizing our shared beliefs, and legitimizing our assumptions (Roe 1992, 1994). This research applies narrative policy analysis to identify and compare the dominant agriculture and food (agri-food) narratives of Canadian federal government and civil society policy over time. It aims to understand and compare what narratives are driving the agri-food policy priorities of each group, with particular attention to how policy narratives address social and environmental goals. This analysis documents and confirms a Neoliberal Techno-optimist Growth Narrative as the dominant narrative in federal Canadian Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AAFC) policy between 1986 and 2019. Over a similar period, civil society has adopted narratives that prioritize localization and democratization of the food system as well as food security. While the neoliberal priorities of market expansion and competitiveness are the focus within federal narratives, civil society concerns related to the social and environmental costs of economic efficiency, including reduced farmer livelihoods, environmental degradation, and loss of community decision-making capacity, have received marginal attention from federal policy. We discuss how the Neoliberal Techno-optimist Growth Narrative imposes structural barriers on the pursuit of environmental and social goals by establishing a hierarchy of goals whereby environmental/social goals can only be pursued to the extent that they contribute to economic growth and by promoting a techno-optimist approach. As such, the dominant Neoliberal Techno-optimist Growth Narrative stabilizes two contested assumptions: (1) economic growth through liberalized trade is the best approach to achieve societal wellbeing, and (2) that technological innovation will sufficiently address environmental pressures.

Purpose COVID-19 public health measures exacerbated intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure among women across the world. In the current study, we examine how provincial restrictions in British Columbia influenced experiences of IPV using an intersectional framework. Method A quota sample of 1,504 women residing in the Metro Vancouver Region participated in an online survey. We examined the differences between women exposed to physical IPV and unexposed women with respect to (a) sociodemographic factors, (b) IPV contextual factors, (c) access to essential services, (d) financial insecurities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (e) mental health, COVID-19-related stressors, and perceived social support. Results Nearly 10% of our sample experienced IPV during the pandemic, and marginalized women (racial-ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, women with lower educational attainment) were significantly more likely to experience physical IPV victimization; a cluster analysis of social identity characteristics further indicated that marginalization predicted IPV victimization. Women exposed to physical IPV during the pandemic had higher odds of experiencing challenges accessing drug and alcohol services, domestic violence services, and legal services, and paying for housing compared to unexposed women, and reported higher levels of anxiety, depression, COVID-19-related distress, and lower levels of tangible and emotional-informational social support than unexposed women. Conclusions Results indicate disparities in exposure to and outcomes of IPV during the pandemic along existing lines of oppression.

Cannabis plants produce a spectrum of secondary metabolites, encompassing cannabinoids and more than 300 non‐cannabinoid compounds. Among these, anthocyanins have important functions in plants and also have well documented health benefits. Anthocyanins are largely responsible for the red/purple color phenotypes in plants. Although some well‐known Cannabis varieties display a wide range of red/purple pigmentation, the genetic underpinnings of anthocyanin biosynthesis have not been well characterized in Cannabis. This study unveils the genetic diversity of anthocyanin biosynthesis genes found in Cannabis, and we characterize the diversity of anthocyanins and related phenolics found in four differently pigmented Cannabis varieties. Our investigation revealed that the genes 4CL, CHS, F3H, F3′H, FLS, DFR, ANS, and OMT exhibited the strongest correlation with anthocyanin accumulation in Cannabis leaves. The results of this study enhance our understanding of the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway and shed light on the molecular mechanisms governing Cannabis leaf pigmentation.

P/Q-type (Cav2.1) calcium channels mediate Ca²⁺ influx essential for neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission. The CACNA1A gene, encoding the Cav2.1 pore forming subunit, is highly expressed throughout the mammalian central nervous system. Alternative splicing of Cav2.1 pre-mRNA generates diverse channel isoforms with distinct biophysical properties and drug affinities, which are differentially expressed in nerve tissues. Splicing variants can also affect channel function under pathological conditions although their phenotypic implication concerning inherited neurological disorders linked to CACNA1A mutations remains unknown. Here, we quantified the expression of Cav2.1 exon 24 (e24) spliced transcripts in human nervous system samples, finding different levels of expression within discrete regions. The corresponding Cav2.1 variants, differing by the presence (+) or absence (Δ) of Ser-Ser-Thr-Arg residues (SSTR) in the domain III S3-S4 linker, were functionally characterized using patch clamp recordings. Further, the + /ΔSSTR isoforms were used to demonstrate the differential impact of the Familial Hemiplegic Migraine Type 1 (FHM-1) S218L mutation, located in the domain I S4-S5 linker, on the molecular structure and electrophysiological properties of Cav2.1 isoforms. S218L has a prominent effect on the voltage-dependence of activation of +SSTR channels when compared to ΔSSTR, indicating a differential effect of the mutation depending on splice-variant context. Structural modeling based upon Cav2.1 cryo-EM data provided further insight reflecting independent contributions of amino acids in distant regions of the channel on gating properties. Our modelling indicates that by increasing hydrophobicity the Leu218 mutation contributes to stabilizing a structural conformation in which the domain I S4-S5 linker is oriented alongside the inner plasma membrane, similar to that occurring when S4 is translocated upon activation.The SSTR insertion appears to exert an influence in the local electric field of domain III due to an change in the distribution of positively charged regions surrounding the voltage sensing domain, which we hypothesize impacts its movement during the transition to the open state. In summary, we reveal molecular changes correlated with distinct functional effects provoked by S218L FHM-1 mutation in hCav2.1 splice isoforms whose differential expression could impact the manifestation of the neurological disorder. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13041-024-01152-z.

The Japanese term ki 氣 / 気 (Chinese qì ) is a fundamental concept in East Asian religions, medicine, and martial arts. In Euro-American settings, the dominant way to understand ki is in terms of vital energy or life force. However, when the martial art aikido ( aikidō 合氣道 ) was introduced to the United States following World War II , ki was not explained in terms of “energy,” but rather as “mind” or “spirit.” This article examines the transnational development of ki discourse in aikido from pre-war Japan to the post-war United States, including its entanglement with religion and state power. It also compares aikido’s development and circulation in the North Pacific with that of the healing practice of Reiki 靈氣 / レイキ .