Reproductive traits are often thought of as fixed, genetically determined properties. However, such traits are often dynamic, exhibiting different expression patterns depending on context. Both internal state and external environment can have a strong effect on how traits are expressed. Variation in these factors across the lifetime of an individual should select for flexibility in trait expression, rather than fixation.My dissertation work examines how mating behavior and testes size respond to several previously unexplored contextual factors, using Rhagoletis juglandis, the walnut fly, as a model system. For mating behavior, I predicted that differences in female reproductive state (egg load) and experience with host resource would impact mating decisions. For testes size, I predicted that social environment (sex ratio) and changes in resource environment would determine testes size.Behavioral observations of flies showed that a large egg load increased the likelihood of copulation, while prior experience with host fruit decreased copulation time. These results are the first to distinguish effects of experience on physiological state from other effects of experience in the context of mating behavior.Manipulation of the sex ratio revealed that males develop larger testes when reared in an environment with many potential competitors. This is the first study to show that that allocation to a male reproductive organ can change depending on the sex ratio. My studies showed that resource environment is also important in determining testes investment patterns. When adult males are deprived of protein, they develop smaller testes. A stable isotope analysis of testes further confirms that resource environment is important for testes development. Males rely more on nitrogen derived at the larval stage than at the adult stage, but adult carbon sources are a large component of testes mass.In sum, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of context in the expression of reproductive traits. Recent research has shown that such traits can respond more dynamically to context than previously thought, but this area of research is young. My results help provide a greater understanding of the processes shaping the evolution of reproductive traits.

Changes in breastfeeding practices have been accompanied by profound changes in the daily context within which women make infant-feeding decisions. The availability and promotion of breast milk alternatives, the transmission of breastfeeding knowledge and skills, and the individual and societal value placed on breastfeeding and breast milk are all issues that need to be considered. In this seminar, Aleck will provide a brief history of breastfeeding trends and policies. He will suggest that a historical understanding of the relationship between socio-cultural trends and breastfeeding patterns is essential to informing current policy development and advocacy in the area of infant feeding. Finally, he will examine the context of policy development in the twenty-first century, including the possible challenges presented by international free trade agreements, questions about federal/provincial responsibility for breastfeeding promotion, the relationship between women’s productive and reproductive work, and the need to redefine breastfeeding success at a policy level.

The current study examined the experiences of adolescents considered to be at-risk for academic underachievement in an after-school reading intervention program (called the Vocabulary Learning Project, or VLP), with the goal of identifying the individual and social contextual factors that influence their engagement in the literacy intervention. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 adolescent participants post-intervention to gain their personal insights on relevant contextual experiences, resulting in the identification of key factors that are associated with student engagement at the behavioral, affective and cognitive levels. The findings from this study serve as an important indicator of some of the multiple influences on the literacy engagement of at-risk adolescents. This has implications for the design of future interventions developed for the purpose of improving the academic achievement, and ultimately the economic and personal advancement, of adolescents living in urban, marginalized settings.

The primary objective of this research was to explore the icewine package design by conducting two experiments. In experiment 1, there was not congruity effect between label images and bottle forms for icewine. Additionally, in terms of natural label image, opaque Bordeaux bottle form was perceived to be more luxurious and more expensive than transparent Bordeaux bottle form for icewine; these results were only found for natural label image rather than delicate label images. Furthermore, opaque Bordeaux bottle form with maple leaf label image was found to be the optimal design for Canadian icewine. In experiment 2, there was no significant difference on consumers’ evaluations for congruent and moderately incongruent designs under the moderating effect of purchase context (i.e., buying for others and buying for self). The findings not only contribute to the icewine packaging literature but also contribute to Canadian icewine manufacturers, and the industry as a whole, with a competitive advantage.

The most common and natural human behaviours are often the most computationally difficult to understand. This is especially true of spoken language comprehension considering the acoustic ambiguities inherent in a speech stream, and that these ambiguities are exacerbated by the noisy and distracting listening conditions of everyday life. Nonetheless, the human brain is capable of rapidly and reliably processing speech in these situations with deceptive ease – a feat that remains unrivaled by state-of-the-art speech recognition technologies. It has long been known that supportive context facilitates robust speech perception, but it remains unclear how the brain integrates contextual information with an acoustically degraded speech signal. The four studies in this dissertation utilize behavioural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods to examine how the normally functioning human brain uses context to support the perception of degraded speech. First, I have observed that text presented simultaneously with distorted sentences results in an illusory experience of perceptually clearer speech, and that this illusion depends on the amount of distortion in the bottom-up signal, and on the relative timing between the visual and auditory stimuli. Second, fMRI data indicate that activity in the earliest region of primary auditory cortex is sensitive to the perceived clarity of speech, and that this modulation of activity likely comes from left frontal cortical regions that probably support higher-order linguistic processes. Third, conscious awareness of the visual stimulus appears to be necessary to increase the intelligibility of degraded speech, and thus attention might also be required for multisensory integration. Finally, I have demonstrated that attention greatly enhances the processing of degraded speech, and this enhancement is (again) supported by the recruitment of higher-order cortical areas. The results of these studies provide converging evidence that brain uses prior knowledge to actively predict the form of a degraded auditory signal, and that these predictions are projected through feedback connections from higher- to lower-order order areas. These findings are consistent with a predictive coding model of perception, which provides an elegant mechanism in which accurate interpretations of the environment are constructed from ambiguous inputs in way that is flexible and task dependent. / Thesis (Ph.D, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-25 10:48:50.73

Graduate students' teaching contributes to undergraduate education throughout North America (Park, 2004), the United Kingdom (Muzaka, 2009), Australia (Kift, 2003), and New Zealand (Barrington, 2001), particularly in first-year courses. Mandatory and voluntary training programs, courses, workshops, and certificate programs have been implemented centrally (Mintz, 1998) and departmentally (Ronkowski, 1998) to develop graduate students’ knowledge and skills and improve their teaching. Research assessing outcomes of these programs indicates improvements in individuals’ conceptions about teaching (Saroyan, Dagenais, & Zhou, 2009), but limited impact on practice (Buehler & Marcum, 2007). A potential explanation for this discrepancy is that current individual-focused support for graduate students is not sufficient; rather, teaching and teaching development are influenced by local disciplinary and institutional culture (Taylor, 2010; Trowler & Bamber, 2005). Literature on graduate studies completion further indicates the role of informal supports in graduate students’ academic success (e.g., Lovitts, 2004). This mixed-method research sought to widen the traditional research focus regarding support for graduate students’ scholarly teaching by examining: (1) how support is characterized and described in official visioning documents, policies, and websites at a single institution; (2) how graduate students at this institution generally viewed department and institution-wide supports listed on past surveys, and (3) how current graduate students and supportive individuals from the same institution described available and desired supports. Four themes emerged during analysis of the survey and interview data: formal support, informal support, communication/collaboration, and feedback. These themes were sometimes echoed and sometimes absent in the official documents and existing literature on graduate students’ teaching, which primarily focused on formal supports. Throughout this research, support was explored within the contextual reality in which graduate students learned and taught by examining the sources of such support across the social ecological layers of sector, institution, department, courses, faculty members, peers, and the individual. By broadening the conceptualization of support beyond formal programming, a single social ecological layer, a small group of official support providers, or a one-time event, this study expands both the depth and breadth of possibilities for resource planning within institutions, and future research on teaching supports and graduate student experiences. / Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-26 17:24:15.055

Research into the phenomenon of change has attracted interest from a range of management disciplines; organizational, management, behavioural and operations. Each discipline brings with it a perspective which informs the theoretical debates and empirical research, resulting in different ideas, meaning and approaches taken in studying the phenomenon of change. Ideas about the meaning of the content of change, why contextual factors might influence the process of change and, how does the process of change unfold over time, are three important aspects to understanding the phenomenon of change. This literature review draws on the three concepts of the content, context and process of change to explore the extant change literature. Evidence based literature reviews have a strong tradition within the medical field and have been shown to be a rigorous method for determining efficacy of clinical trials. This review applies the principles of this method but within a management research context and reviews 52 papers. Variations in the aspects of organizational context and process of change empirically studied confirm that context plays a significant and influential role in processes of change and change outcomes. There is little evidence to support the idea that the content of change influences the process of change activities and this is an area that needs further research. Further research is also needed to develop the idea of the importance of emergent change activities within planned change frameworks.

The current study examined the experiences of adolescents considered to be at-risk for academic underachievement in an after-school reading intervention program (called the Vocabulary Learning Project, or VLP), with the goal of identifying the individual and social contextual factors that influence their engagement in the literacy intervention. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 adolescent participants post-intervention to gain their personal insights on relevant contextual experiences, resulting in the identification of key factors that are associated with student engagement at the behavioral, affective and cognitive levels. The findings from this study serve as an important indicator of some of the multiple influences on the literacy engagement of at-risk adolescents. This has implications for the design of future interventions developed for the purpose of improving the academic achievement, and ultimately the economic and personal advancement, of adolescents living in urban, marginalized settings.

This thesis explores the experiences of school for gifted and talented adolescents in New Zealand. The foci of inquiry are a) what it is like to be gifted and talented in a New Zealand schooling context, and b) the understandings of a group of students, their parents and teachers, about the achievement and underachievement of gifted learners. The research relates specifically to a group of 11 gifted and talented students, their experiences and ideas about what it means to be gifted and talented and to achieve as gifted and talented learners. Adopting a qualitative, phenomenological methodology, the voices of the students were prioritised in the research process and thesis writing. Semi-structured interviews are the main source of data. Multiple interviews were conducted with the adolescent participants over a period of 18 months, within their first two years of secondary schooling, and with their parents and teachers. Written reflections by the students provide supplementary data. The thesis explores and problematises understandings of achievement and underachievement that are presented in literature and were held by the research participants. The implications of these understandings on the decisions that gifted adolescents make, about what constitutes achievement and whether and how they seek to achieve in school, are highlighted. The essences of the lived schooling experiences for the gifted and talented adolescents in this study are drawn together and summarised in three main themes. The first theme relates to culture and context and how this influenced the students’ understandings about what it meant to be gifted and talented within the particular socio-cultural milieu of a New Zealand school. The participants showed an understanding of the preferred New Zealand values of modesty and the downplaying of any perceived advantages. The second theme relates to the concept of ‘potential’ as an enigma and a nebulous term that is assumed to mean different and particular things for gifted and talented learners. It is argued that it is not theoretically sound to structure definitions of underachievement for gifted learners around the idea of ‘not reaching your potential.’ The third theme relates to the negotiation of adolescent identities. Being gifted and talented added to the complexities around identity development for the students who participated in the study, as they worked to find their fit within the socio-cultural context of a New Zealand school. Four different identity profiles are developed to provide an illustration of the variation and complexity of gifted and talented students’ identity negotiations. There is little research literature that centres on the lived experiences of gifted students within New Zealand society. This study seeks to address this gap. The research and theorising from this thesis will add to the growing research base in New Zealand on educating gifted and talented learners. Readers of the thesis, who may include a range of education professionals, are invited to draw implications from the study about the experiences and achievement of gifted adolescents and relate the findings to their knowledge and understanding of gifted and talented learners, within their own work situations and cultural contexts.

This study investigated children's social learning of prosocial behaviors in a transgressor context. Two-to three-year-olds (24-47 months, N = 54) saw videos of an adult help another adult in distress by performing a novel prosocial action. Children were then led to believe that they had transgressed to cause their parent's pain and sadness. It was hypothesized that children in the experimental condition who watched the video and then transgressed would be more likely to perform the novel action (imitation) and to display non-demonstrated prosocial behaviors (goal emulation) relative to children in two control conditions: (a) children who did not view the video but transgressed and (b) children who viewed the video but witnessed a neutral interaction. Children in the experimental condition were no more likely to imitate or emulate than children in the control conditions, suggesting that children have difficulty applying socially learned prosocial behaviors in a transgressor context.