University of the Fraser Valley

Cellular agriculture refers to a broad set of emerging technologies that draw upon research in genomics and synthetic biology to produce biological compounds. Much of the interest in cellular agriculture stems from its potential as a way of producing high-quality proteins and other nutrients with reduced environmental impact. Cellular agriculture techniques are rapidly nearing commercial scales of production, in part due to the application of knowledge and techniques produced through genomics research related to gene expression, editing, and genome-scale data analytics. However, much remains unknown and there is little rigorous evidence to test these assertions. This chapter applies the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a lens through which to examine protein production using cellular agriculture, to understand how it may contribute to the development of more sustainable and resilient food system. We examine two emerging approaches to cellular agriculture—cultured meat and fermentation-derived dairy—and explore both the complexity and knowledge gaps that need to be filled to ensure these tools are deployed to help create a more sustainable future for all. This chapter concludes by proposing an agenda for future research and policy development.

Active learning solves machine learning problems where acquiring labels for the data is costly. It allows for the learner to select training samples by asking intelligent questions. Various sampling strategies exist for choosing the training set for pool-based active learning. However, the existing representative querying approaches for active learning do not attempt to capture the underlying data distribution, which we believe is an important part of representative sampling. To that end, we propose an adaptation of the sigma point sampling technique from unscented transformation (UT) for constructing a representative subset. UT has shown to be very effective in non-linear transformation modeling in object tracking and robotics. When combined with the Gaussian mixture model, sigma points can estimate the statistical moments such as mean and co-variance of an unknown distribution with very few samples which are generated deterministically. Sigma point sampling being parameterized gives better control over the sampling process. We use sigma points for representative subset construction and train the learner on them. We compare our results with other sampling techniques and improve test accuracy on the handwritten digit recognition data set MNIST.

This study examines the influence of Internet development, institutional quality, and economic integration on economic complexity defined as the productive capabilities of a country and represented by Economic Complexity Index (ECI). Because ECI looks to explain the knowledge accumulation in the population and expressed in economic activities, this indicator is often used as a predication for economic growth. Analyzing a panel of 89 countries over the period 2002–2016, our empirical results show that Internet development, institutional quality, and trade openness are key drivers of economic complexity. Our empirical findings lead us to suggest that for the least developed countries, trade openness would help to boost economic complexity while FDI inflows may not be of any benefit. However, for middle-income countries, their technology absorption capacity is higher; as such, both trade openness and FDI inflows can contribute to their expansion of economic complexity. Nonetheless, for most developed countries, economic integration appears to exert (economically insignificant) negative effects on economic complexity. The results, which are checked by a battery of robustness tests also confirm that institutional quality is the major determinant of production fitness.

The focus of the manuscript is on unique stressors and mental health challenges faced by professional ice hockey enforcers during their careers and how these stressors, when combined with a history of neurotrauma, may affect functioning post-career. It was hypothesised that participants would have several challenges with mental health caused by repetitive exposure to concussive and sub-concussive events consistent with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) symptomology. Ten retired professional ice hockey enforcers were interviewed to identify whether they experienced stressors or mental health challenges post-career. A mixed methods approach was utilised to develop descriptive and emergent themes and their frequencies. Participants reported a number of stressors unique to the enforcer role. Their response to these stressors was mediated by whether they embraced or tolerated/accepted the enforcer role. Two participants reported being diagnosed with depression with another stating that he had felt periods of sadness in the past. This pattern of results did not support the hypothesis. While there is some evidence to suggest that ex-professional hockey enforcers have challenges with mental health post-career, the prevalence is consistent with the estimates in the general population and with other elite athletes in other sports.

Yoga may offer benefits for children and adolescents affected by cancer or blood disease, yet there are challenges in translating evidence to practice. Yoga instructors are critical for the delivery of yoga. Understanding yoga instructors’ experiences offering yoga to children and adolescents affected by cancer or blood disease could provide information to guide required competencies and training, as well as elucidate factors to consider in future research and programs. Therefore, the present study sought to understand yoga instructors’ lived experiences preparing for and facilitating yoga for children and adolescents affected by cancer or blood disease. Fourteen yoga instructors with experience facilitating yoga for this population participated in semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using principles of interpretive description and thematic analysis. Five unique themes were identified: (1) “I believe in and see the perceived benefits of yoga on and off the mat”; (2) “I feel equipped to deliver yoga but desire further training”; (3) “what I need to deliver a safe yoga program”; (4) “I must be adaptable to successfully facilitate a yoga program”; and (5) “what I need to ensure yoga is widely available.” Findings highlight the varied and comprehensive training opportunities yoga instructors sought, while elucidating their training limitations. Yoga instructors shared their perspectives on concerted attention to safety, effectiveness, and access when developing research and programs. This study represents a first step toward defining required competencies for delivering yoga to this population and lays the foundation for future research and programs.

This study analyzes the impact of travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the safety of women at home, and on home production responsibilities. We use Google’s community mobility reports to measure changes in travel patterns and Facebook’s Survey on Gender Equality at Home to measure changes in home production and safety at home during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic for 101 countries. We uncover two key findings: first, travel restrictions increase the percentage of women who felt unsafe at home, and second, travel restrictions lead to a rise in home production for both sexes, with men bearing much of the increase. We discuss the implications of these results for policies to support women and girls during pandemics.

This paper examines the potential effects of testosterone and personality traits on the decision to evade taxes. In a series of experiments, subjects completed behavioural tasks and made a one-shot tax evasion decision. We estimate a negative weakly significant treatment effect, which suggests that an exogenous increase in the testosterone level may inhibit the decision to evade taxes. Our results also suggest that higher dominance and independent self-construal, as well as lower self-control, are associated with a greater likelihood of tax evasion. We discuss the mechanisms potentially linking testosterone to tax evasion. These findings support the inclusion of biological factors in the analysis of tax evasion behaviour.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted multiple vulnerabilities and issues around local and regional food systems, presenting valuable opportunities to reflect on these issues and lessons on how to increase local/regional resilience. Using the Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD) in Canada as a case study, this research employs integrated planning perspectives, incorporating comprehensive-systems, regional, place-based, and temporal considerations, to (1) reflect upon the challenges and vulnerabilities that COVID-19 has revealed about local and regional food systems, and (2) examine what these reflections and insights illustrate with respect to the needs for and gaps in local/regional resilience against future exogenous shocks. The study used a community-based participatory approach to engage local and regional government, stakeholders, and community members living and working in the FVRD. Methods consisted of a series of online workshops, where participants identified impacts related to the food production, processing, distribution, access, and/or governance response components of the local and regional food systems and whether these impacts were short-term (under 3 months), medium-term (3 to 12 months), or long-term (over 1 year) in nature. Findings from the study revealed that food systems and their vulnerabilities are complex, including changes in food access and preparation behaviours, lack of flexibility in institutional policies for making use of local food supply, cascading effects due to stresses on social and public sector services, and inequities with respect to both food security impacts and strategies/services for addressing these impacts. Outcomes from this research demonstrate how including comprehensive-systems, regional, place-based, and temporal considerations in studies on food systems vulnerabilities can generate useful insights for local and regional resiliency planning.

Young people are on the front lines of transforming agriculture and food systems, coping with the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 as well as environmental and climate change effects which are likely to accelerate and intensify during their lifetimes. At the same time, young people across global contexts are increasingly emerging as visible agents of change in food systems, especially through networks that create, transform, and distribute food systems knowledge. This policy and practice review examines the role of youth as actors through food systems knowledge networks. Increasing youth participation in creating sustainable food systems for the future requires policies and practices that support food systems-related knowledge in two ways: (1) democratizing formal education systems; and (2) strengthening horizontal networks of grassroots research and innovation, including through traditional, ecological, local and community knowledge (TELCK). Food systems policies should be developed through dialogue with diverse knowledge systems, experiences, place-based needs, and aspirations of young people to maximize their participation in food systems policy development and evaluation.

COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of social justice in understanding and addressing health disparities by amplifying how environmental conditions have increased the risk in some populations.Within a social justice agenda, there is a need for nurse educators to design courses that highlight how contextual factors influence health more so than genes.In this paper we propose seven core topics foundational to an undergraduate global health course along with teaching strategies using the “think global and act local” approach.

To date, very little is known archaeologically about First World War–era internment camps, especially in Canada, where this history was actively erased through the destruction of the federal internment records in the 1950s. This research focuses on the Morrissey Internment Camp, one of Canada’s 24 World War I internment camps, with the aim of using the material culture record at the camp as a point of access to examine the coping strategies prisoners of war adopted to help mitigate mental-health issues triggered by confinement. Fieldwork involved surveying, mapping, the deployment of ground-penetrating radar, and excavation within the grounds of the internment camp. A formal walking traverse of the site was conducted to map the surface collections of archaeological material. In addition, archival materials that included government reports, maps, and photographs complemented interviews conducted with the descendant community. The findings indicate that arts and handicrafts, religion, communication, resistance, tobacco, alcohol, and purchased comforts may have helped prisoners of war stave off depression and sustain a degree of mental health.

Podcasts possess the unique affordance of “hyper-intimacy” that allows listeners to tap into personal experiences and emotional connections. Intersecting with social media spaces, these connections provide for the formation of online communities that encourage listeners to engage in discursive politics and to view their own experiences as part of a feminist politics. Piggybacking on the “Serial Effect”, the true crime podcast, My Favorite Murder, became a cult sensation while connecting individual listeners to an online community of Facebook groups, twitter accounts and subreddits. In this paper I examine how, through a series of memes, jokes, stories and mantras, these MFM-focused online spaces have transformed an online podcast community into a subcultural space that advances discourses about challenging women’s fear of violence and victimization. Examining how the issue of violent crime against women is being understood and developed. I draw on the concept of discursive politics as well as the emerging literature on the potential of podcasting.

In this paper, we provide a novel application of synthetic control methods by offering two major modifications to the existing methodological framework. We provide the first complete ex-post evaluation of the causal impact of carbon pricing on aviation supply, expressed in terms of airline output (i.e., number of seats supplied at the airline-route level). We investigated the policy change in the European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS), the first large greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in the world. We distinguish between low-cost, regional and full service airlines, short and medium/long-haul routes, routes towards (or from) hub airports versus non-hub airports, monopolistic versus non-monopolistic routes. The analysis shows that the EU ETS does not have a substantial impact on the average aircraft size, while it has caused a reduction of total airline seat capacity and flight frequency, with the percentage of airline seat capacity reduction reaching above 20% at its peak. The overall effect of the policy has a remarkable impact on low-cost and regional airlines, short-haul routes, spoke–spoke markets and monopolistic routes. Our results are the first empirical confirmation to the theoretical prediction in the aviation literature that emission charges will reduce flight frequency and increase load factors while having no effect on aircraft size.

Leadership plays a significant role in determining an institution’s success in an international context. The extent to which a cross-cultural organization is effective in an international environment is largely determined by its structure, processes, and leadership. These success factors remain somewhat consistent across industries and lessons learned in one industry may have cross-industry implications. While higher education leadership is recognized as complex, demanding, and unique, it also offers valuable insight into the field of international leadership and may yield transferable lessons learned to any transnational organization. Specifically, that there is much to learn from higher education leadership in international contexts. Both academics who author this study have lived, taught, and led in international higher education for many years. This self-study of leadership in this field contributes to the knowledge base in relation to the complexities of leadership in International Branch Campuses (IBC) wherein the leadership is charged with balancing diverse cultural aspects of employees, but also of the cultures of the host country and the guest institution. Findings reveal three areas of complexity: possibilities and tensions of budget change; leadership in a transitory international environment; transitory/contract faculty in IBCs in times of economic change. The authors assert the need for extensive commitment to embrace, integrate, and embody intercultural competencies particularly in addressing difficult and changing times as a feature of their self-study of international and transnational leadership.KeywordsLeadershipEducationInternational branch campuses

The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts—School of Business / Hochschule Luzern—Wirtschaft (HSLU-W) and the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV)—School of Business (SoB) are institutions that value internationalisation. One of the events where internationalisation manifests itself is called International Leadership—Vancouver as the Asian-Pacific Gateway (Vancouver International Leadership Week, or VILW). During this event, executive-education students from HSLU-W arrive in Vancouver and attend a series of planned visits to government, industry, and academic engagements for the period of 1 week. Participants from the SoB also attend all of the events with participants from the HSLU-W. The planning for this annual event is collaborative between the two institutions, and the planning team is co-led by the authors of this study, both of whom have a particular interest in international experiences, intercultural learning, and cross-national collaborative leadership. This qualitative, duoethnographic study will explore their collaborative co-leadership of VILW in the time frame of February, 2019 through to February, 2021. This study contributes to the knowledge base by shedding light on the emergence and maintenance of a collaborative, international co-leadership team over time and through the planning of an international partnership event.KeywordsDuoethnographyCollaborative leadershipInternational exchangesShort-term programmesGlobal teams

Fungal entomopathogens can greatly reduce the fitness of their hosts, and it is therefore expected that susceptible insects will be selected to avoid exposure to pathogens. Metarhizium brunneum is a fungal pathogen that can infect Agriotes obscurus, which in its larval form is a destructive agricultural pest and is repelled by the presence of M. brunneum conidia. Due to the subterranean nature of larval A. obscurus, recent research has focused on targeting adult A. obscurus with M. brunneum. No-choice and choice behavioural assays were conducted to determine if male adult A. obscurus avoid M. brunneum mycosed cadavers, or conidia applied to either food or soil. To further investigate the response of A. obscurus beetles to conspecific cadavers, the movement and behaviour of beetles placed at the centre of a semi-circular arrangement of mycosed or control cadavers was examined using motion tracking software. We found little evidence to suggest that A. obscurus male beetles avoid M. brunneum conidia or mycosed conspecific cadavers or alter their behaviour in their presence.

The South Asian Canadian Digital Archive (SACDA) is a soon-to-be-released digital repository developed by the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley, located in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada. SACDA partners with memory institutions, individuals, families, and organizations to digitize, describe, and provide online public access to heritage materials created by, or relevant to, the South Asian Canadian diaspora. This project report will detail how SACDA is building a customized thesaurus to classify its digitized archival holdings, augment existing subject headings and thesauri, and fill in taxonomical gaps. Building on prior work done by alternative thesauri like the Homosaurus, Association for Manitoba Archives Indigenous Subject Headings, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Thesauri, and the International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology, among others, the SACDA thesaurus intends to fill in a vital gap in South Asian Studies subject control, particularly from a Canadian perspective.

In Perron’s edited compendium of essays regarding horror video games subtitled Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play (2009), much of the argumentation orbits debate regarding the definition and creation of the experience of horror compared between an ostensibly passive cinema reception (from whence the games take most of their conventions) and the ostensibly more active reception of ludological horror. As the argument goes, ludic activity creates greater identification with diegetic characters and therefore heightens the player’s experience of horror. But is this true, or is it a specious contention that does not really account for the complex mechanics of identification with characters in the ostensibly “passive” experience of cinema viewing, nor for the fact that lacking realism and “active” gameplay may actually compromise the experience of “transportation”?