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A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Kinesiology and Health Studies, University of Regina. ix, 85 p. Open water swimming (OWS) is currently one of the fastest growing mass participation sports worldwide, and differs from pool swimming in that athletes swim in natural bodies of water such as lakes, oceans and rivers. Participation in this sport spans a wide range of individuals of all ages with a roughly equal sex distribution. No prior investigations have evaluated the musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries characteristic to the sport in a recreational capacity, and only one group has completed biannual surveillance in an elite population on three occasions. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the prevalence and explore possible risk factors associated with MSK injuries in non-elite OW swimmers during the COVID-19 pandemic (for circumstantial reasons). Participants were invited through a variety of social media channels and OWS community communications to complete a self-administered internet-based survey to evaluate the details of any injuries sustained within the previous 6-month period and various other demographic and training related details. 156 participants completed or partially completed the survey (95 female, 52 male, 9 did not disclose their sex; average age 47.7 (±12.4) years). The 6-month prevalence of MSK injury within this population was 30% (n=36), with the most commonly injured region being the shoulder (n = 25), and the second most common being the cervical spine (n = 6). A logistic regression was performed to assess the association between self-reports of injury (outcome variable) and various predictor variables. The final model yielded one significant predictor variable: participation in efforts to prevent injury (OR [95% CI] = 5.004 [1.356, 18.465], Wald =5.843, p = 0.016). Two marginally-significant predictor variables were age (OR [95% CI] = 1.039 [0.996, 1.084], Wald = 3.093, p = 0.079) and sex (female) (OR [95% CI] =2.614 [0.852, 8.021], Wald = 2.821, p = 0.093). Results of this study will be dispersed among the OWS community via academic and open-access publications, and may be used to guide injury prevention and rehabilitation efforts in this growing population. Student yes

Objective: To determine the relative risk of drug-induced Long QT Syndrome (LQTS) associated with SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) proposed repurposed drugs compared to well-known torsadogenic compounds. Setting: Computer calculations and simulations were performed using primary pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data for each proposed drug. Seven different LQTS indices were calculated and compared. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database was queried with specific key words relating to arrhythmogenic events. Interventions: A thorough literature search was performed to gather information on the pharmacological properties of six drugs (azithromycin, chloroquine, favipiravir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir, and remdesivir) repurposed to treat COVID-19. Researchers emphasized the affinity of these drugs to block the rapid component of the delayed rectifier cardiac potassium current (IKr) encoded by the human ether-a-go-go gene (hERG), their propensity to prolong cardiac repolarization (QT interval), and cause torsade de pointes (TdP). The risk of drug-induced LQTS for these drugs was quantified by comparing six indices that assess such risk. Primary and secondary outcome measures: Level of risk estimated for the six COVID-19 drugs being proposed compared to 23 torsadogenic drugs. Number of proarrhythmic adverse events identified for these drugs in the FAERS. Results: Estimators of LQTS risk levels indicated a very high or high risk for all COVID-19 repurposed drugs with the exception for azithromycin, although cases of TdP have been reported with this drug. There was excellent agreement among the various indices used to assess risk of drug-induced LQTS for the six repurposed drugs and 23 torsadogenic compounds. Conclusion: The risk-benefit assessment for the use of repurposed drugs to treat COVID-19 is complicated since benefits are currently anticipated, not proven. Mandatory monitoring of the QT interval shall be performed, as such monitoring is possible for hospitalized patients or with the use of biodevices for outpatients prescribed these drugs.

There is broad interest in improved methods to generate robust evidence regarding best practice, especially in settings where patient conditions are heterogenous and require multiple concomitant therapies. Here, we present the rationale and design of a large, international trial that combines features of adaptive platform trials with pragmatic point-of-care trials to determine best treatment strategies for patients admitted to an intensive care unit with severe community-acquired pneumonia. The trial uses a novel design, entitled "a randomized embedded multifactorial adaptive platform." The design has five key features: 1) randomization, allowing robust causal inference; 2) embedding of study procedures into routine care processes, facilitating enrollment, trial efficiency, and generalizability; 3) a multifactorial statistical model comparing multiple interventions across multiple patient subgroups; 4) response-adaptive randomization with preferential assignment to those interventions that appear most favorable; and 5) a platform structured to permit continuous, potentially perpetual enrollment beyond the evaluation of the initial treatments. The trial randomizes patients to multiple interventions within four treatment domains: antibiotics, antiviral therapy for influenza, host immunomodulation with extended macrolide therapy, and alternative corticosteroid regimens, representing 240 treatment regimens. The trial generates estimates of superiority, inferiority, and equivalence between regimens on the primary outcome of 90-day mortality, stratified by presence or absence of concomitant shock and proven or suspected influenza infection. The trial will also compare ventilatory and oxygenation strategies, and has capacity to address additional questions rapidly during pandemic respiratory infections. As of January 2020, REMAP-CAP (Randomized Embedded Multifactorial Adaptive Platform for Community-acquired Pneumonia) was approved and enrolling patients in 52 intensive care units in 13 countries on 3 continents. In February, it transitioned into pandemic mode with several design adaptations for coronavirus disease 2019. Lessons learned from the design and conduct of this trial should aid in dissemination of similar platform initiatives in other disease areas.Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02735707).

Background: Voluntary self-exclusion is a well-known harm reduction intervention in problem gambling, although primarily in operator-specific or venue-based systems. A nationwide overall self-exclusion system (“Spelpaus”) for all licensed gambling was introduced in Sweden in 2019. However, gambling in overseas companies despite national exclusion may be a concern in online gamblers. The present web survey study aimed to study self-reported self-exclusion and gambling despite exclusion in a nationwide multi-operator land-based/online exclusion system.Methods: Web survey in web panel members of a market survey company, carried out in May, 2020 (co-occurring with the COVID-19 pandemic). Past-year online gamblers (n = 997) answered questions about gambling patterns, gambling problems, psychological distress, self-exclusion since “Spelpaus” introduction, and gambling despite self-exclusion.Results: Seven percent reported ever self-excluded at Spelpaus, and this was associated with younger age, female gender, gambling problems, and chance-based games and online poker. In logistic regression, Spelpaus remained strongly associated with past-year online casino gambling, gambling problems, and absence of past-year sports betting. Among those having self-excluded, 38 percent reported gambling despite self-exclusion, most commonly online casino.Conclusions: In online gamblers in a setting with a nationwide self-exclusion system, using this was associated with past-year online casino gambling and gambling problems. Gambling despite self-exclusion appears to be common, and more commonly involves online casino. Stakeholders should aim to increase rates of self-exclusion in high-risk online gamblers, both during and beyond the COVID-19 situation in which the study was carried out. Also, policy makers should use gambling regulation in order to decrease the risk of breaching self-exclusion online, such as through the prohibition of non-registered gambling operators. Further research should focus on in-depth analysis of the reasons for gamblers to enroll or not enroll in multi-operator self-exclusion.

Silvicultural herbicides are used in Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) to suppress vegetation that competes with trees for growing space, light, nutrients, water, and other resources in managed forests. While the toxicity and environmental impacts of silvicultural herbicides have been widely studied, far less is known about their effects on culturally significant plants important to Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Boreal Forest Region. The main objective of this thesis is to assess the silvicultural use of herbicides on ethnobotanical species in the Canadian boreal. I identified 914 ethnobotanical plants in the Canadian boreal, including plants used as food, medicines, tools, art and culture, and for spiritual purposes. Most of these plants are not considered threatened globally or in Canada but are vulnerable to decline or elimination following herbicide spraying in managed forests. The results of my thesis support restricting herbicide spraying as an IVM practice in areas important to Indigenous Peoples. Professor Robin Roth for providing funding for my thesis, through the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP), Graduate Coordinators in the Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment - Drs. Noella Gray and Aaron Berg for funding support that I received from the department and additional financial support from the University of Guelph’s College of Social and Applied Human Sciences (CSAHS) COVID-19 Delay Assistance Program

Plastics are versatile, durable, and can be manipulated to match different needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of reducing plastic waste and is believed to be responsible for increasing the generation of plastic waste by 54,000 tons/day which was reported in 2020. Another widely available waste is biomass waste. Agriculture and agroforestry, forest and wood processing, municipal waste, and the food industry are all considered major producers of biowaste. Co-gasification is considered one of the most promising methods of chemical recycling that targets the production of syngas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) and light hydrocarbon gases. In this study, the gasification of pure birch sawdust wood (BSD) and pure rice husk (RH) was compared with mixtures where each BSD and RH was mixed with both LDPE and HDPE in the presence of three different bed materials, namely silica sand, olivine, and red mud. It was found that mixing the biomass with LDPE and HDPE increased hydrogen gas (H2) production. The Hydrogen gas concentration in the product gas increased slightly from 10% to 12% by volume when birch sawdust (BSD) was mixed with LDPE with a ratio of 1:1, while the hydrogen gas concentration increased to 15-16% by volume when birch sawdust was mixed with HDPE with a ratio of 1:1 and olivine has been used as bed material. The lower heating value of the produced gas, which has a direct relationship with the hydrogen and light hydrocarbons concentration, increased from 2.8 to 5.7 MJ/Nm3. Red mud increased the lower heating value of the produced gas when rice husk was premixed with HDPE from 3-4 MJ/Nm3 to 5.5-6 MJ/J/Nm3, however, the main drawback of using red mud as a bed material was the occurrence of attrition which requires a precautionary measure to control the dust produced and prevent air pollution. The produced gases from the gasification processes are commonly used in internal combustion engines applications, but due to the high content of hydrogen gas (H2/CO range 2-3) in the product, it can be considered a renewable source of hydrogen by further processing the gas mixture to obtain pure hydrogen gas that is utilized in various chemical industries.

Academic researchers, government agencies, industry groups, and individuals have produced forecasts at an unprecedented scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. To leverage these forecasts, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with an academic research lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to create the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub. Launched in April 2020, the Forecast Hub is a dataset with point and probabilistic forecasts of incident cases, incident hospitalizations, incident deaths, and cumulative deaths due to COVID-19 at county, state, and national, levels in the United States. Included forecasts represent a variety of modeling approaches, data sources, and assumptions regarding the spread of COVID-19. The goal of this dataset is to establish a standardized and comparable set of short-term forecasts from modeling teams. These data can be used to develop ensemble models, communicate forecasts to the public, create visualizations, compare models, and inform policies regarding COVID-19 mitigation. These open-source data are available via download from GitHub, through an online API, and through R packages.

Most safety and efficacy trials of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines excluded patients with cancer, yet these patients are more likely than healthy individuals to contract SARS-CoV-2 and more likely to become seriously ill after infection. Our objective was to record short-term adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine in patients with cancer, to compare the magnitude and duration of these reactions with those of patients without cancer, and to determine whether adverse reactions are related to active cancer therapy.A prospective, single-institution observational study was performed at an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. All study participants received 2 doses of the Pfizer BNT162b2 vaccine separated by approximately 3 weeks. A report of adverse reactions to dose 1 of the vaccine was completed upon return to the clinic for dose 2. Participants completed an identical survey either online or by telephone 2 weeks after the second vaccine dose.The cohort of 1,753 patients included 67.5% who had a history of cancer and 12.0% who were receiving active cancer treatment. Local pain at the injection site was the most frequently reported symptom for all respondents and did not distinguish patients with cancer from those without cancer after either dose 1 (39.3% vs 43.9%; P=.07) or dose 2 (42.5% vs 40.3%; P=.45). Among patients with cancer, those receiving active treatment were less likely to report pain at the injection site after dose 1 compared with those not receiving active treatment (30.0% vs 41.4%; P=.002). The onset and duration of adverse events was otherwise unrelated to active cancer treatment.When patients with cancer were compared with those without cancer, few differences in reported adverse events were noted. Active cancer treatment had little impact on adverse event profiles.

Background: Evidence suggests that refugee and immigrant children and youth are less likely to access needed mental health care. In most cases, settlement service providers may assist by connecting individuals with local resources to help with the transition and providing non-clinical mental health and wellbeing assistance. Few studies have examined the access to mental health care by newcomer children and youth, creating a knowledge gap in addressing the barriers and facilitators for accessing mental health services. This study aimed to explore the service providers’ perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to accessing mental health services for Arabic-speaking newcomer children and youth in Hamilton, Ontario. Methods: Data was collected using semi-structured key informant interviews with service providers (n=7) representing a variety of sectors. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Six themes identified the data's most significant and pertinent aspects relative to my research question. The attitudes of Arabic-speaking newcomers toward mental health and mental well-being, the stigma around mental health, and trust-related issues were identified as three distinct individual factors that can function as barriers to seeking mental health care. Another theme emphasized the importance of the cultural competency and diversity of service providers. Lastly, two themes addressed health system-related variables that highlighted the gaps and challenges in the existing mental health care system for newcomers and the detrimental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: Enhancing and enabling access to mental health care for all newcomer children and youth is essential for their current and future mental health and wellbeing. This study suggests a few recommendations and future directions for service providers, researchers, and decision-makers to promote newcomers’ access to mental health care. Thesis Master of Science (MSc)