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Open Access
Infant feeding and child cognition and behaviour: quantifying pathways to understand the link in the CHILD cohort study
(2024-10-31) Turner, Sarah; Nickel, Nathan (Community Health Sciences); Roos, Leslie (Psychology); Keim, Sarah (Ohio State University); Azad, Meghan B.
Introduction: Research has shown that breastfeeding is related to improved child cognitive and behavioural outcomes (CBOs), however, few studies have examined pathways to explain these associations. The objectives of this dissertation are to examine 1) the relationship between breastfeeding and child CBOs and 2) four pathways to help explain this link: breast milk components, the gut microbiome, maternal depression, and the parent-child relationship. Methods: This dissertation uses data from the CHILD cohort study (n=2,342 parent-infant dyads). Infant feeding practices, maternal depression and parent-child relationship were repeatedly measured from birth to two years using standardized questionnaires. Breast milk samples, collected at 3-4 months, were analyzed for fatty acids and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs); stool samples, collected a 3 and 12 months, were analyzed for microbiome diversity and composition. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development and the Child Behaviour Checklist were used to measure child CBOs at 2 and 5 years. Linear regression, adjusting for confounders, was used to assess the relationships between infant feeding, breast milk components and child CBOs. Interaction terms were used to investigate moderation by child sex, family socioeconomic risk or maternal secretor status. Mediation analysis was used to assess the role of the gut microbiome, maternal depression and the parent-child relationship. Results: Longer breastfeeding duration and more exclusive breastfeeding were related to better child CBOs with the strongest associations observed for behaviour at five years, and stronger associations for those with more socioeconomic risk factors. Higher concentrations of the HMOs 3’-sialyllactose and lacto-N-hexaose were related to better language and cognitive scores, respectively. The gut microbiome did not mediate the relationship between infant feeding and CBOs; however, maternal depression and the parent-child relationship were mediators of this association. Conclusion: Breast milk components as well as maternal mental health and the parent-child relationship all contribute to the relationship between infant feeding and CBOs, with the parent-child relationship having the strongest effect size in mediation models. This research can provide evidence for policies and programs to support breastfeeding, maternal mental health and a positive parent-child relationship and inform the development of supplements for babies who cannot be breastfed.
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Open Access
Uncovering the effects of early life cigarette smoke exposure on offspring lung function and DNA methylation patterns using a mouse model
(2024-10-30) Onuzulu, Chinonye (Doris); Davie, James (Biochemistry and Medical Genetics); Pascoe, Christopher (Physiology and Pathophysiology); Ogilvie, Tamra (Biochemistry and Medical Genetics); Holloway, John (Human Genetics and Genomic Medicine, University of Southampton); Jones, Meaghan
Early life cigarette smoke (CS) exposure has been associated with the development of sex-specific, persistent health deficits in offspring, and changes in epigenetic marks such as DNA methylation (DNAm) potentially link early life CS to these health outcomes. There is also evidence that addition of a secondary CS exposure in adulthood further exacerbates these health alterations, a process known as priming. However, while past studies have identified DNAm patterns which are altered following early life CS, the impacts of prenatal and early postnatal CS have not been studied separately, most of the past research was conducted in blood with little evidence from the lungs and other more proximal tissues, and DNAm patterns underlying sex-specific health outcomes have not been investigated. In addition, the molecular mechanisms underlying priming upon combined early and later life CS have not been reported. Using a mouse model which we developed to separately study the effects of prenatal, early postnatal, or combined CS exposure on offspring lung function and DNAm, we uncovered differentially methylated sites and lung function phenotypes which are unique to each type of CS exposure, with minimal overlaps across groups, across tissues and between sexes. We also identify DNAm alterations which persist into adulthood following early life CS, identifying a period in adulthood where the effects of early life CS exposure are most pronounced. Our results also demonstrate for the first time, epigenetic priming in mice following repeated CS exposure, and we identify novel biomarkers specific to prenatal CS exposure and smoking in adulthood. Overall, this research offers deeper insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying early life CS-induced phenotypes, as this understanding is important to the development of intervention strategies to mitigate the effects of early life CS exposure on offspring health.
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Uncovering effects of temperature on dietary-fibre-associated inflammatory response in inflammatory bowel disease
(2024-10-29) Olof, Hana; Marshall, Aaron (Immunology); O'Neil, Liam (Internal Medicine); Armstrong, Heather
Dietary fibres are not digested in the human gut but require resident gut microbes to ferment them into beneficial short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). However, some IBD patients express intolerance to high-fibre foods, which our lab previously found may be due to reduced fibre fermenting microbiota and interaction of select unfermented fibres (e.g., β-fructans) with TLR2, driving gut damage and inflammation. In contrast, b-glucan and pectin fibres displayed null or anti-inflammatory effects, suggesting that regardless of gut microbiota changes, select fibres could be beneficial in IBD. Traditional medicines have recognized the benefits of high-fibre beverages, although scientific evidence is limited. Moreover, there is also a gap in understanding how heat exposure during processing affects the biological role of these beverages. The traditional Ethiopian beverage, Kineto, is made from straining (room temperature) or boiling barley (β-glucan) and citrus fruits (pectin). Based on our prior investigations demonstrating a potential benefit of select fibre subtypes in IBD, I hypothesized that Kineto could promote anti-inflammatory pathways and that altering the fibre physiochemical properties through temperature exposure could further improve these anti-inflammatory effects. Our pilot study examining the inflammatory responses of the Kineto components (barley [BW], citrus peel [PLW] and pectin [PW]) in PBMCs (n=7) and THP-1 cell lines (n=3) suggested a potential anti-inflammatory role for PW. Subsequently, the complete Kineto solution in ex vivo human gut biopsies suggested anti-inflammatory trends of Kineto (e.g., reduced IL1B, CCL4, TNF), particularly at 70°C. The overall findings from physicochemical properties suggest that the anti-inflammatory trends for Kineto at 70°C (K70) could be from the observed increase in phosphorus, phytic acid, amylose and gel content, along with decreased protein. The observed beneficial trends of Kineto also come from the pectins and polyphenols found in citrus fruits, as seen from the relatively reduced pro-inflammatory markers (e.g., TNF, CCL3) in response to pectins with polyphenols (P1+ph). This was further supported by examining individual fibres found in Kineto, which revealed that unfermented citrus pectins inhibited pro-inflammatory IL-1B. These findings suggest the health-promoting potential of Kineto and encourage further research into this beverage as a prebiotic product.
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Open Access
A mixed methods exploration of the characteristics, dynamics, processes and perceived effects of research partnerships in child health
(2024-10-10) Crockett, Leah; Driedger, Michelle (Community Health Sciences); Scott, Shannon (Nursing); Leatherdale, Scott (University of Waterloo); Sibley, Kathryn
Background: Research partnerships between health researchers and knowledge users (e.g., children and youth, parents and families, healthcare providers) are gaining momentum to promote the uptake and application of research. Yet, comprehensive data on partnerships within child health research that include partnership traditions and knowledge user groups remains limited. This dissertation addresses this gap by exploring child health as a unique context for research partnerships, focusing on their characteristics, dynamics, processes, and effects. Methods: This dissertation adopts an exploratory mixed-methods approach across three concurrent studies, employing multiple data collection and analysis methods while maintaining conceptual coherence and a pragmatic philosophical orientation, integrating findings in the discussion. Objective 1 characterized knowledge user engagement in published child health research through a scoping review, examining characteristics, practices, barriers, facilitators and effects. Objective 2 used interpretive description to provide an in-depth understanding of the experiences, motivations, and relational dynamics of engaging in research partnerships among Canadian child health researchers and knowledge users. Objective 3 employed a concurrent mixed-methods design to explore considerations influencing the individual determinants and perceived effects of partnered child health research compared to other health research contexts, through secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey of Canadian partnered health research projects funded from 2011-2019 and interviews with child health researchers and knowledge users informed by qualitative description. Results: Objective 1 revealed a growing trend in publications on child health research partnerships, particularly since 2019. Most studies used community-based participatory research approaches and engaged multiple knowledge user groups, though reporting on barriers, facilitators, and effects varied. Objective 2 highlighted role-specific motivations for partnering and underscored the central role of relationships in shaping partnership dynamics, sustainability, and the ability to navigate challenges. Researchers often balanced evolving partnership practices within academic systems and structures not always conducive to collaboration, resulting in tensions. Objective 3 found no significant differences between child and general health cohorts in survey responses. Child health respondents reported positive perceptions of their capability, opportunity, and motivation to work in partnership, but mixed views on project effects. Interview participants embraced common principles across research contexts while navigating additional logistical (e.g., institutional processes) and practical (e.g., engaging proxies) challenges unique to partnered child health research. Participants noted distinct considerations (e.g., safeguarding vulnerable populations), processes (e.g., tailoring engagement strategies) and effects when engaging children and youth, with the ethos of the child health community facilitating partnerships. Conclusion: Overall, research partnerships in child health share common principles and challenges with those in other health research contexts, but also have unique characteristics, dynamics, and processes that add nuance to the conceptualization and practice of partnering. These findings provide a foundational understanding of child health research partnerships, guiding efforts to optimize partnership research and practice. By deepening our understanding of these elements, partners can work toward meaningful collaborations that enhance child health research uptake and effects.
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Open Access
Addressing gaps in community-level antimicrobial resistance monitoring through wastewater surveillance
(2024-10-02) Daigle, Jade; Knox, Natalie (Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disceases); Garroway, Colin (Biological Sciences); Mangat, Chand; McLaren, Paul
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an escalating global health crisis, yet existing monitoring systems inadequately track AMR at the community level. Wastewater surveillance (WS) offers a practical solution by providing a scalable, non-invasive approach to monitor community-level AMR. This thesis contributes to the development of a national WS program in Canada, enhancing our capacity to detect and manage AMR. Central to this work was the advancement and validation of a wastewater-specific quantitative metagenomic (wqMeta) workflow, designed to enrich and quantify thousands of AMR gene families in diverse wastewater samples. A DNA extraction method was optimized, comparing two extraction kits—PowerMicrobiome (PMB) and MagNA Pure 96 (MP96). Processing 100 mL of wastewater with the PMB kit consistently yielded higher DNA concentrations and quality, enabling more effective downstream analyses. The wqMeta workflow, which normalized data by both total bacterial load and wastewater flow rates, outperformed the published qMeta method, which relied solely on bacterial load. The wqMeta approach closely mirrored quantitative PCR (qPCR) in its ability to quantify absolute AMR gene abundances, demonstrating superior accuracy and scalability. A nine-week pilot study across six wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in urban, rural, and remote communities in central Canada validated the workflow. Results revealed stable AMR concentrations over time, with significant spatial differences: urban sites exhibited higher AMR levels and gene diversity compared to remote sites, highlighting the influence of population density on AMR dissemination. This study underscores the potential of WS to bridge critical gaps in AMR monitoring and offers actionable insights for public health interventions. The findings demonstrate that WS, supported by advanced methodologies such as wqMeta, can provide real-time, population-wide AMR data. Implementing a national WS program would strengthen Canada’s ability to detect and respond to AMR trends, guiding evidence-based policy decisions to mitigate the growing threat of AMR.
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Open Access
Circuit models and AMP algorithms for future-generation wireless communication systems
(2024-10-12) Akrout, Mohamed; Hossain, Ekram (Electrical and Computer Engineering); Yahampath, Pradeepa (Electrical and Computer Engineering); Heath, Robert W. (University of California San Diego); Mezghani, Amine; Bellili, Faouzi
Due to the significant increase in high data rate services and the demands of future wireless networks, researchers in the physical layer community are exploring new trends including i) integrating electromagnetic theory with communication theory, and ii) developing low-complexity digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. This thesis aims to address gaps in the communication and DSP literatures. The first part of the thesis incorporates physical limitations of antennas, such as size and mutual coupling, into circuit models for near- and far-field communications. Traditionally, constraints like antenna size and bandwidth are not included in information-theoretic performance analysis. A key finding is that mutual coupling can widen the operational bandwidth of large-scale antenna arrays, revealing a "bandwidth gain" in massive multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) technology. The second part of the dissertation addresses recent developments in the approximate message passing (AMP) literature, where algorithms rely heavily on some assumptions (i.e., AWGN model, separable denoisers) which are not practical in many engineering applications. We extend the vector AMP approach, initially used for high-dimensional linear regression in compressive sensing, to handle arbitrary independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) noise priors. Additionally, a bilinear generalized vector AMP algorithm is proposed, tracking the correlation matrices of the linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) estimation. While this increases complexity, it allows the algorithm to outperform state-of-the-art solutions with discrete-valued priors. The thesis also introduces a non-separable denoiser for estimating permutation matrices, addressing the unlabeled sensing problem. Despite the computational intractability of estimating permutation matrices for even small problem sizes, the proposed unlabeled compressed sensing (UCS) approach approximates the intractable permutation denoiser using two connected assignment denoisers through a belief propagation procedure. Theoretical performance guarantees are provided through state evolution (SE) equations predicting empirical mean square error (MSE) in large systems. Simulations demonstrate the algorithm's effectiveness and superiority over existing methods. At the intersection of DSP, antenna, and communication theories, this thesis highlights the need to revisit information theoretic concepts from an electromagnetic perspective. It emphasizes the importance of circuit-based models for their ability to define and optimize the physical characteristics and constraints of communication components in an era dominated by data-driven approaches.
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Open Access
Restoring Manoomin in Brokenhead Ojibway Nation through a community-led approach: implications on food security and the local economy
(2024-09-18) Nwankwo, Uche; Brewin, Derek (Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics); Bobiwash, Kyle (Entomology); Thompson, Shirley
Manoomin (Zizania palustris), also known as wild rice, is a culturally, spiritually, nutritionally, and ecologically important plant to the Ojibway people. Production and management of Manoomin are deeply rooted in Indigenous food system knowledge (IFSK), which was negatively affected by colonial legacies. This research asked whether Manoomin production can play a significant role in the Ojibway economy amid high food insecurity, structural barriers to traditional food access, and challenges to sustainable livelihoods. My mixed methodology research employed the need-based approach (NBA) in investigating a sustainable pathway to restoring Manoomin to Brokenhead Ojibway Nations (BON). Community members enrolled in the Kitigay pilot program, a project-based post-secondary education program, took the lead in restoring Manoomin in BON and transforming the abandoned weedy Bison Ranch farm for gardening and orchard planting. An initial 60 pounds of Manoomin was procured and planted in BON Rivers in October 2024, with community members' active participation. Later, a community café was organized in collaboration with community members. The community café’s impact resulted in the BON Chief and Council purchasing and planting an additional 2,000 pounds of Manoomin in 2023, applying IFSK. A community café, survey, and participatory action research undertaken in this study indicate that Manoomin is regarded as an essential component of the Ojibway people’s food chain, economy, and environment. Eighty-one percent of the 21 participants who completed the semi-structured survey indicated the likelihood of participating in future community-led Manoomin restoration projects. In ranked order (1 = not at all important to 5 = very important), the three most compelling reasons among ten variables for participating in the community café are transferring IFSK to the youth (90%), reviving IFSK (88%), and income and employment opportunities (86%). The Spearman’s correlation results suggest a strong positive correlation between reviving IFSK and transferring IFK to the youth (r =.67, n = 21, p < .001). A strong positive correlation exists between reviving IFSK and decolonizing IFSK (r =.57, n = 21, p < .007). The Manoomin restoration in BON presents a compelling argument for community-led participatory approaches to addressing food insecurity problems in Indigenous communities.
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Open Access
Knowledge Synthesis Research in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences
(2024-08-29) Lê, Mê-Linh; Linton, Janice; Monnin, Caroline
Knowledge synthesis, which includes systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and rapid reviews, is an important form of research for the Rady of Faculty of Health Sciences. But how is this research completed, what services are available to support students and researchers doing this work, and what does published KS from the RFHS look like over the last six years? Librarians from the Neil John Maclean Health Sciences Library have collaborated with RFHS faculty, students, and researchers on hundreds of reviews, consulted on innumerable projects, answered thousands of knowledge synthesis questions, and provided hours of in-class and online instruction. Since 2018 we have also offered a multi-part workshop series that allows attendees to add it to their Experience Record. We also recently completed a research study that identified all published KS research produced by the RFHS community since 2017. This allowed us to conclusively identify trends in the overall increase in KS, the incredible growth of specific review types, and possible relationships between librarian collaboration on a KS and the journal impact factor of the published research. Pulling from these two information sources, this presentation will provide an overview of KS research output at RFHS and outline supports available to KS researchers. This session will be valuable for anyone involved in KS research within the RFHS – whether as summer research students or longtime KS investigators.
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Open Access
Trends in Evidence Synthesis and Growth in Librarian Involvement
(Library Evidence Synthesis Services Symposium (LESSS), 2024-06-27) Monnin, Caroline; Lê, Mê-Linh
This study examines the evolving role of librarians within evidence synthesis (ES) research at a mid-sized university after the introduction of a tiered service model. We identified all ES published by our institution and used content analysis to categorize the type of evidence synthesis (e.g., systematic reviews, scoping reviews), the disciplines represented (e.g., nursing, psychology), and the specific ways librarian contributions were credited or acknowledged (e.g., co-authorship, mentioned by name in the search methods). Findings highlight a significant increase in librarian co-authorship since the introduction of our tiered model in 2017, reflecting a growing recognition of librarian expertise in evidence synthesis methodologies and the possible impact of our tiered model. Additionally, our research reveals overall trends in output and disciplines publishing ES research. This presentation is valuable for librarians and administrators planning their own ES research service and those interested in learning how a tiered model can result in increased acknowledgement and co-authorship for librarians involved in evidence synthesis research. Slides were presented as part of the Library Evidence Synthesis Services Symposium (LESSS) which occurred June 24-27, 2024.
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Designing and testing a prototype stable-wing-support system to deploy, retrieve, and operate a horizontal river hydrokinetic turbine within the water column to achieve cost-effective power generation in cold climates
(2024-10-05) Aqdiam, Ibrahim; Wu, Nan (Mechanical Engineering); Mantilla, Ricardo (Civil Engineering); Bibeau, Eric
River hydrokinetic turbines harness renewable energy in river currents to contribute to microgrids. Despite many hydrokinetic turbine designs, systems still require reducing costs and operate effectively in cold climates. A stable-wing-support system is developed and tested to deploy, retrieve, and operate within the water column of a horizontal axis river turbine. The prototype design addresses identified stability problems using a fixed-wing design previously tested in a laboratory water tunnel and an energetic river. The stable-wing-support system prototype uses a NACA 0012 airfoil with 6°, 10°, and 15° dihedral angles designed using open-source Xflr5 software to optimize the lift, drag, and moment coefficients for angles of attack from -5° to +15°. The prototype also includes a winged tail to improve the turbine assembly's stability further. The stable-wing-support prototype designed using SolidWorks is 3-D printed. Tests are conducted to quantify the stability of the stable-wing-support prototype using a water tunnel at flow velocities varying from 0.5 to 1 m/s, resulting in Reynold’s numbers from 3.37x105 to 6.74x105. Stability data is recorded and analyzed using open-source Tracker software and then exported to MATLAB software for analysis. Results indicate that the stability of the stable-wing-support system with dihedral angles 6°, 10°, and 15° and a winged tail significantly improves the stability by 80%, 50%, and 40%, respectively, compared to a previous design for flow velocities up to 1 m/s, addressing the objectives of this research and contribute a design to maximizing power production in cold climates.