University of Victoria

Setting The crisis of unregulated fentanyl-related overdose deaths presents a significant public health challenge. This article describes the implementation and evaluation of four Safer Opioid Supply programs (SSPs) in Ontario, one in London and three in Toronto. Intervention and implementation SSPs aim to curtail overdose fatalities while connecting individuals using drugs to healthcare services. The programs involve a daily dispensed prescription of immediate-release hydromorphone tablets for take-home dosing alongside an observed dose of long-acting opioids like slow-release oral morphine. Implemented within a multidisciplinary primary care framework, these programs emphasize patient-centred approaches and comprehensive health and social support. Outcomes In our study conducted in 2020/2021, clients and service providers reported that receiving pharmaceutical opioids through these programs improved the clients’ health and well-being. The regulated supply was reported to lead to decreases in overdose incidents, use of unregulated substances, and criminalized activities. Increased engagement with healthcare and harm reduction services and improvements in social determinants of health, such as food security, were also reported. Despite these positive outcomes, some implementation challenges, including capacity issues and provider burnout, were described by service providers. Implications Our findings suggest that the combination of safer supply, wrap-around support, and harm reduction within primary care settings can lead to increased healthcare engagement, HIV/HCV prevention, testing, and treatment uptake, reducing the burden of infectious diseases and overdose risk. SSPs have the potential to meaningfully reduce overdose rates, address the ongoing overdose crisis, and if scaled up, influence population-level outcomes.

Land grabbing intensified as a global phenomenon between 2007 and 2009, driven by entities from major economic centers acquiring vast parcels of land in low-income regions across Africa, Asia, and South America. Proponents argue that large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) deliver significant socioeconomic and environmental benefits by replacing inefficient smallholder practices and supporting climate change initiatives. Critics, however, contend that these acquisitions often seem speculative, lack robust justifications, and fail to consult or fairly compensate local communities. Recent evidence suggests that this commodification has disproportionately harmed marginalized communities, especially in areas lacking robust regulatory frameworks, leading to displacement, deforestation, and unfulfilled promises. We explore the mechanisms by which proponents of LSLAs justify these acquisitions despite significant local resistance. Our analysis focuses on the rhetorical strategies these actors use to construct land as an economic commodity available for exchange. We identify four key strategies: rhetorical axiomatization, rhetorical commensuration, rhetorical impersonation, and rhetorical dystopianization. These strategies illustrate the paradoxical use of language by LSLA proponents, ostensibly aimed at addressing grand challenges, yet often leading to collective action problems. We conclude with considerations of the practical and policy implications of our findings.

Background Cancer is a major global cause of morbidity and mortality. Survivorship is increasing, bringing new challenges. Cancer treatment, including chemotherapeutic drugs, immunotherapy, and radiotherapy, can have severe and impactful gastrointestinal side effects occurring shortly after treatment (acute toxicity) or persisting for years after treatment ends (late/chronic toxicity). Purpose The aim of this article is to review the neurotoxic effects of chemotherapy on the enteric nervous system (ENS) and the gut extrinsic innervation. These effects could contribute to the development of long‐term gastrointestinal dysfunctions. Research, primarily conducted in animal models, indicates that antitumoral drugs can lead to chemotherapy‐induced enteric neuropathy (CIEN). Studies, mainly performed in the myenteric plexus, show that CIEN is characterized by a reduced density of nerve cells and fibers, as well as an imbalanced representation of neuronal subpopulations or their markers, with enteric glial cells also affected. These alterations underlie changes in neuronal activity and gastrointestinal motor function. Although research on the submucosal plexus remains limited, evidence suggests that CIEN affects the entire ENS. Furthermore, scarce studies show that CIEN also occurs in humans. Moreover, emerging experimental data on chemotherapy‐induced alterations in visceral sensitivity suggest that the extrinsic innervation of the gut is also affected, but this has received little attention thus far. Nevertheless, this could contribute to the development of chemotherapy‐induced brain–gut axis (BGA) disorders in the long term. Cancer chemotherapy (and probably also immunotherapy and radiotherapy) seems to cause neuropathic effects on the intrinsic and extrinsic innervation of the gastrointestinal tract, with an important impact on gastrointestinal and BGA functions. This is a relatively neglected area deserving further investigation.

Background Parents with children in the home may benefit considerably from sport participation, given the high levels of physical inactivity and psychosocial distress among this group. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of team sport participation on mental health (primary outcome) as well as other secondary psychosocial outcomes compared to an individual physical activity condition and a “date night” control condition among parents with young children (under the age of 13). Methods A three-arm parallel design single blinded randomized controlled trial compared the team sport (n = 58), individual physical activity (n = 60), and control condition (n = 66) over three months. Well-being variables (short-form-12, satisfaction with life scale, parental stress scale, relationship assessment scale, family inventory version II) were assessed at baseline and post-randomization at 6 weeks and 3 months. Rolling recruitment began in winter 2016 until spring 2023. Analyses were conducted using generalized linear mixed models. Results Team sport participation resulted in improvements in mental health and increased relationship satisfaction compared to the other conditions. Team sport participation also showed improvements in lowering parental stress and increasing family emotional expressiveness compared to the control condition. All conditions improved satisfaction with life, lowered stress, increased relationship satisfaction, benefited family health/competence and lowered family conflict over time. Discussion The findings extend prior observational research by demonstrating team sport participation may be a viable activity to recommend for parents of young children, who are typically challenged by lower well-being, stress, and social isolation from other adults. Registered trial The clinical trial is registered with the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health registration ID is NCT02898285.

As location-based social media has rapidly grown, trip recommendations have become increasingly important. Many recommender systems do not consider the valuable information contained in user reviews, which is a missed opportunity. By incorporating review text, recommendation performance can be improved, and the Cold Start issue could be alleviated. This study proposes a new personalized method for recommending Point of Interest (POI) trips based on user reviews. The proposed method reduces the time required to find POIs using two-level clustering based on the Manhattan interval. Furthermore, our method employs an LSTM network (Long Short-Term Memory) to find similar users based on their feedback, reducing data scarcity's impact and coping with the Cold Start issue. Moreover, it introduces multifaceted contextual information and represents a novel approach to determining user preferences. Finally, this neural hybrid framework identifies a list of the most efficient trip candidates by mining personalized POIs in a sequential pattern and incorporating them into the recommendation process. The proposed methodology was tested using datasets from Yelp, Gowalla, and Tripadvisor, and the results represented that it performed better than other methods in multiple metrics, including MAP, NDCG, RMSE, and F-Score.

Alcohol is a major cause of health and social costs and harms in Canada. While research and awareness of harms caused by alcohol are on the rise, few transdisciplinary platforms exist that are committed to facilitating bold alcohol policy change to reduce health inequities and improve lives. In response to feedback heard during engagement for the Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation project, an alcohol policy–focused community of practice (CoP) was launched in January 2022. Webinars, roundtable discussions, working group meetings, networking events, and a digital platform allow practitioners from various sectors (e.g. public health, alcohol regulation and distribution, public safety, justice, non-governmental organizations), researchers, and people with lived/living experience (PWLLE) to connect, share experiences and resources, and build capacity. More than 500 members have joined the CoP from all Canadian provinces and territories, and international jurisdictions. CoP members engage in learning opportunities, contribute to letter-writing campaigns in support of alcohol policy initiatives, and lead a working group focused on alcohol warning labels. Through the CoP, members report gaining and applying new knowledge in their work, while also establishing valuable connections and collaborations that have supported positive change. This cross-jurisdictional, intersectoral alcohol policy CoP facilitates knowledge sharing, networking, and collaboration among practitioners, policymakers, advocates, and PWLLE, while contributing to public health efforts to prevent alcohol harms. Furthermore, as transdisciplinary approaches continue to be prioritized in research and practice, this CoP offers an example that could be applied to other public health initiatives.

This paper demonstrates an on-chip anhydrous D-glucose sensor using a coplanar stripline (CPS) on a thin (1 \upmum) silicon nitride membrane at terahertz (THz) frequencies. A thin layer ($\approx$ 10 \upmum) of D-glucose was placed in close proximity to the CPS and the transmission response was measured using a modified THz-TDS setup. The D-glucose introduces frequency-dependent changes to the effective permittivity of the CPS resulting in a modified spectral response at the receiver. Measurement results show absorption signatures at 1.42 THz and 2.07 THz corresponding to the first two significant resonances beyond 1 THz for D-glucose allowing for label-free detection. The frequency-dependent attenuation coefficient was estimated by simulation for several D-glucose layer thicknesses using a modified Lorentz model. Measurement results align with simulations and other literature that use free-space THz radiation. This work verifies on-chip THz sensing of D-glucose and presents a pathway toward on-chip sensing of other materials at THz frequencies.

Gender equality has been a key consideration for policymakers and natural resource managers in assessing climate risk and developing effective adaptation strategies. However, the interests and concerns of women in relation to climate-related planning and fisheries policies are often neglected. This underrepresentation of women, particularly from developing countries, poses a risk of overlooking opportunities to support vulnerable fishing communities. Additionally, it inadvertently increases the vulnerability of marginalized women fisherfolk. This paper reviews 122 refereed publications on the empowerment of local fishing communities, gender participation in fisheries governance, development, and the need to consider gender dimensions in climate adaptation programs worldwide. It highlights the socioeconomic impacts of climate change on livelihood and discusses potential adaptation measures. The findings support the adoption of frameworks and policies that provide alternative metrics for women's empowerment, inclusion in fisheries govern-ance, and climate adaptation strategies. The study also offers recommendations for governments, non-governmental organizations, and development agencies responsible for fisheries governance and climate adaptation initiatives.

Biometric technologies are at the forefront of organizational innovation, surveillance, and control. In many instances, the use of physiological and behavioral biometrics enhances individual and organizational performance. However, they also have the potential to hinder human wellbeing. In particular, recent generations of biometrics are capable of extracting deeper insights into human behavior, enabling organizational surveillance practices, but may also constrain individual rights and freedoms. While biometric technologies have been evidenced to infringe upon privacy and lead to discriminatory practices, little research has examined the impact of biometrics on dignity, an important ethical construct related to human wellbeing. In this conceptual paper, we draw from the theory of affordances to identify and delineate six affordances of biometric technologies, categorized into inhibiting and augmenting biometric affordances. We propose a framework in which inhibiting and augmenting biometric affordances may simultaneously support and humiliate dignity. This separation offers a theoretical base for future empirical research to explore the increasingly pervasive relationship between biometric adoption and human dignity. Moreover, we explain six paradoxical tensions across three forms of dignity—inherent, behavioral, and meritocratic—in the proposed framework. Finally, we discuss why firms should be responsible for addressing the tensions across dignity forms when they adopt biometric technologies to balance the trade-off between wealth creation and human wellbeing. This offers guidance for practitioners on how to integrate biometric technologies without hindering human dignity.

In an era of global change, historical natural history data can improve our understanding of ecological phenomena, particularly when evaluated with contemporary Indigenous and place‐based knowledge. The Yáláƛi (Goose Island) Archipelago is a group of islands in Heiltsuk (Haíɫzaqv) territory on the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Not only has this region been important to the Heiltsuk for millennia but also it is both a federally and internationally recognized important bird area. In this study, we compare data collected by Charles J. Guiguet, a biologist who documented bird communities at Yáláƛi in the summer of 1948, to three different contemporary surveys and to citizen‐science data. We find that the relative abundances of forest bird species (i.e., birds that use the terrestrial island ecosystems) in 1948 differed to those observed in systematic surveys in 2011. While Orange‐crowned Warblers, Dark‐eyed Juncos, and Red Crossbills comprised 55% of detections by Guiguet in 1948, the three most abundant species in 2011 were Bald Eagles, Varied Thrushes, and Pacific Wrens, and these accounted for only 25% of detections. Although we could not make a quantitative comparison, we provide summaries of each species observed in surveys or reported on eBird. We also incorporate Heiltsuk place‐based knowledge to enrich our discussion of the variability in bird communities over time, from how changes in mammal communities and human use may have shaped vegetation dynamics to how large‐scale natural phenomena impacted topography. To understand which birds are present and how their communities are changing over time, we recommend continued monitoring of the bird communities at Yáláƛi.

The probability of parallel genetic evolution is a function of the strength of selection and constraints imposed by genetic architecture. Inversions capture locally adapted alleles and suppress recombination between them, which limits the range of adaptive responses. In addition, the combined phenotypic effect of alleles within inversions is likely to be greater than that of individual alleles; this should further increase the contributions of inversions to parallel evolution. We tested the hypothesis that inversions contribute disproportionately to parallel genetic evolution in independent dune ecotypes of Helianthus petiolaris. We analysed habitat data and identified variables underlying parallel habitat shifts. Genotype–environment association analyses of these variables indicated parallel responses of inversions to shared selective pressures. We also confirmed larger seed size across the dunes and performed quantitative trait locus mapping with multiple crosses. Quantitative trait loci shared between locations fell into inversions more than expected by chance. We used whole-genome sequencing data to identify selective sweeps in the dune ecotypes and found that the majority of shared swept regions were found within inversions. Phylogenetic analyses of shared regions indicated that within inversions, the same allele typically was found in the dune habitat at both sites. These results confirm predictions that inversions drive parallel divergence in the dune ecotypes.

Research indicates that the adverse effects on post-secondary students from the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented on a global scale. Specifically, there is limited research that focuses on international students’ mental wellness, resilience, and well-being experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study qualitatively explores the resilience and mental wellness experiences of international university students at a mid-size, research-intensive, public university in British Columbia, Canada. Nine international students, between the ages of 18 and 30, participated in narrative-style interviews. Data were analyzed by using thematic analysis and applying a resilience lens framework. The findings highlight students’ mental wellness challenges and the key factors that were instrumental for supporting their mental wellness and enacting their resilience. These findings help to mitigate the negative impacts that can result from studying during a pandemic and offers recommendations for universities on how to support international students’ overall wellbeing, particularly during significant disruption and isolation.

Strains from the picocyanobacteria genus Synechococcus are currently found across a wide range of photoperiods and photosynthetically active radiation. Future scenarios now forecast range expansions of marine Synechococcus into new photic regimes. We found that strains of temperate, coastal phycocyanin‐rich and phycoerythrin‐rich Synechococcus grew fastest under moderate photosynthetically active radiation, and a 24‐h photoperiod, despite a cumulative diel photon dose equivalent to conditions where growth was slower, under higher light and shorter photoperiods. Under optimal conditions, a phycoerythrin‐rich Synechococcus strain achieved a highest recorded cyanobacterial chlorophyll‐specific exponential growth rate (μ) of 4.5 d⁻¹. Two phycoerythrin‐rich strains demonstrated wider ability to modulate light capture capacity, whereas two phycocyanin‐rich strains showed less change in light capture across increasing cumulative diel photon dose. All four coastal strains showed a decrease of effective absorption cross‐section for photosystem II photochemistry, vs. increasing cumulative diel photosynthetically active radiation doses. Within each strain, μ showed consistent, saturating responses to increasing cumulative diel photosystem II electron flux, with more variations in responses of μ to cumulative photosynthetically usable radiation. As photoperiod opportunists, coastal picocyanobacteria show potential to expand into longer photic regimes as higher latitudes warm.