Researchers often invoke strong assumptions in empirical analyses to identify significant statistical outcomes. Invoking assumptions that do not sufficiently reflect the occurrence of true phenomenon reduces the credibility of inferences. Literature suggests that the potential effects of assumptions on credibility of inferences can be mitigated by comparing and combining insights from alternative econometric models. I use this recommendation to conduct robustness checks of commonly used methods in environmental and health economics. The first chapter proposes a novel nonparametric regression model to draw credible insights from meta-analyses. Existing literature on benefit-transfer validity is examined as an application. Nonparametric regression is found to be a viable approach for drawing robust policy insights. The second chapter proposes an alternative structural and simulations based framework to understand elicitation effects in survey response data. This analysis explains the structural mechanisms in which response anomalies occur and is important for building credible insights from survey data. The last chapter uses methods in program evaluation to investigate the impacts of institutional child deliveries on long-term maternal health in the context of developing countries. The outcomes of this analysis indicate that institutional deliveries positively affect maternal health in lower socio-economic states. Based on the findings of my three chapters, I recommend that researchers should combine insights from alternative models to mitigate the scope of specification bias in empirical outcomes and inform policy about the potential uncertainty that arises in uncovering the truth using statistical methods. / Ph. D.

Hypnotic elicitation of multiple ego states was explored using Hilgard's "hidden observer" paradigm. Twenty subjects in two groups: hypnosis and simulation were utilized to examine the impact of experimental demand characteristics on the production of multiple ego states. Self-report and hypnotist-report measures were obtained in a test-retest design. Multiple t-tests and chi-square analyses were computed with significant differences on key multiple ego state items found between groups. Results demonstrated retest reliability, but not inter-rater reliability of this dissociative phenomena, since hypnotists failed to discriminate real from "faked" hypnotic involvement. Exploration of multiple ego states using non-hypnotic control conditions and multiple dependent measures is suggested for future research.

In Ontario, the majority of children and youth with mental illnesses access primary care as their initial source of mental health services (Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, 2017). Primary care can be an ideal setting for accessing mental health services to prevent symptoms from worsening (Cappelli & Leon, 2017). Adolescence is a time when young people experience several developmental changes and transitions, making them susceptible to mental illnesses (Government of Canada, 2011). Examining adolescents’ perceptions of access is critical to examining how primary care is accommodating their mental health needs (Cappelli & Leon, 2017). The primary purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of adolescents, living in Hamilton, Ontario, with an anxiety or mood disorder, of accessing primary care for mental health services. Perceptions regarding the role of primary care nurses in facilitating access was also explored. Qualitative interpretive descriptive methods were utilized. Data collection included: demographic survey, semi-structured interviews, photo-elicitation project, field notes, and reflexive journaling. Analysis was guided by an access framework (Penchansky & Thomas, 1981) and ecological model (McLeroy et al., 1988). Adolescents ages 15 to 18 years (n=10) participated. Adolescents perceived access to primary care for mental health services as a difficult and complex process involving multiple stages including: feeling uncertain about their mental health concerns and if they required help, seeking informal support from parents and friends to initiate receiving help, and obtaining mental health services from primary care. Implications of this study include addressing adolescents’ developmental needs in care through implementing an individualized-approach and supporting development throughout emerging adulthood. Primary care practitioners must provide information to adolescents and parents about mental health concerns and services during routine interactions. Greater organizational support would enable primary care nurses to have an active role in delivering mental health services and providing comprehensive care. / Thesis / Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

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In 2017 the Kenow wildfire burned thirty-eight percent of Waterton Lakes National Park (WLNP) in southern Alberta at high to very high severity in mere hours. The ecological impacts of the fire will have implications for resource management, including the practice of ecological restoration, for decades to come. In this thesis I ask two main questions. First, in what ways are people who are involved in managing WLNP’s ecosystems experiencing the effects of the Kenow wildfire, and how does their experience combined with the severity and extent of the Kenow wildfire influence park management and ecological restoration approaches in WLNP? Subsidiary to this, I ask, what is the role of history, and the role of future climate projections in managing the post-fire landscape? This research is part of the larger Mountain Legacy Project (MLP), which is systematically repeating historic survey photographs taken in the early 1900s across Canada’s mountain landscapes. I use third-view photographs in photo-elicited semi-structured interviews with park staff to answer my first question. In my second research question I ask what broader themes and specific issues do third-view repeat mountain photographs elicit about ecological restoration and park management. As a follow up, I inquire into what ways photo-elicitation functions as an effective method in park management research? Fourteen participants were interviewed, the majority were resource conservation staff, in addition to one retired park warden, a member of the cultural resources unit, a communications staff, and a former staff member. Participants felt wide-ranging emotions relating to the Kenow fire including grief over loss, happiness about regrowth, excitement about learning, anxiety about people’s safety, and stress over increased workloads. Park management frames vegetation regeneration after the Kenow fire as renewal, accepting that the landscape may look different than it did before the fire. Climate change is only beginning to be integrated into ecological restoration, though park management is adapting to climate change by encouraging renewal under a new climate. Historical knowledge still guides decision making in several ways. Major restoration projects including invasive species management, whitebark and limber pine restoration, and prescribed burning, were all impacted by the Kenow fire. Participants shared their thoughts on unconventional approaches such as novel ecosystems, highlighting misunderstandings and misapprehensions about the concept. Parks Canada has an opportunity to learn from Waterton Lakes’ experience to help streamline their post-emergency response in the future. Findings relating to my second question show these themes and issues were discussed most often by participants when looking at the third-view mountain photographs: fire behaviour, regeneration/renewal, and ecological impacts of the Kenow fire; encroachment; prescribed burning; personal narratives; ecological effects of climate change; and other snapshots. Just less than half the participants did not engage significantly with the photos, which highlights a challenge in using researcher chosen photos. However, many participants did engage and had much to say about the photos, including sharing memories and personal stories. Pre-determined interview questions were essential in unearthing the findings in this thesis, as the photos did not elicit this information alone. / Graduate

In this thesis I am studying how we can make the past accessible in the present through thecombination of objects and stories. The aim is to look at how we are connected to the past andinterwoven with the stories and the objects around us. My interest lies in how and why theseprocesses are important to us and to art pedagogy. In the study I explore the method of objectelicitation to see how it can be useful in art education.Through an ethnography-inspired approach I conducted four interviews, two in Sweden andtwo in South Africa. The narratives that were unfolded from objects in the interviews wereanalyzed with the theoretical concepts relationship and life story from theory on materialculture and narrative theory. I have also used the concept trace from Paul Ricoeur’s writingon narrative time.Using an object of the participant’s choosing as a point of departure, triggered long focusedconversations about the past in relation to personal history and present life. Variousexpressions emerged where the objects in this study can be interpreted as active agentsshaping the people around them, holding knowledge and bridging time. When actualizing theobjects through storytelling relationships to people and places were revealed, giving theabstract perishable past form and meaning in the present. Powerful emotions involved in theseprocesses were expressed in the interviews.This study has a double perspective with both an academic and artistic research process. Theresult of the study is presented in this thesis as well as in an artwork consisting of three shortfilms that were exhibited on Konstfack’s graduation show in 2013.To carry out the field study at the Human Rights Media Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, Ireceived an MFS-stipend.

The purpose of this study was to examine the prosodic cues used by 7 to 11 year-old children to signal questions and declarative statements in terms of changes in fundamental frequency (F0), duration, and intensity. Additional aims were to evaluate how children's use of prosody changes as a function of gender and method of elicitation. A group of 16 children participated in three different types of elicitation tasks (imitative, reading, and naturalistic). An acoustic analysis revealed that the participants produced the different sentence types using a variety of acoustic cues. Not only do children vary the mean of F0 and intensity at the end of the sentences, but they also seemed to use relative differences in peak intensity and F0. Differences between sentence types were also found in the F0 and intensity slope in the terminal portion of sentences. In addition, the way in which the participants signaled sentence type changed as a function of speaker gender and elicitation method for a limited number of acoustic measures. Although the present study found acoustic differences in how the participants' produced the sentence types, additional research is needed to determine the perceptual impact of such differences.

This research is motivated by an issue frequently encountered in environmental water quality evaluation. Many times, the sample size of water monitoring data is too small to have adequate power. Here, we present a Bayesian power prior approach by incorporating the current data and historical data and/or the data collected at neighboring stations to make stronger statistical inferences on the parameters of interest. The elicitation of power prior distributions is based on the availability of historical data, and is realized by raising the likelihood function of the historical data to a fractional power. The power prior Bayesian analysis has been proven to be a useful class of informative priors in Bayesian inference. In this dissertation, we propose a modified approach to constructing the joint power prior distribution for the parameter of interest and the power parameter. The power parameter, in this modified approach, quantifies the heterogeneity between current and historical data automatically, and hence controls the influence of historical data on the current study in a sensible way. In addition, the modified power prior needs little to ensure its propriety. The properties of the modified power prior and its posterior distribution are examined for the Bernoulli and normal populations. The modified and the original power prior approaches are compared empirically in terms of the mean squared error (MSE) of parameter estimates as well as the behavior of the power parameter. Furthermore, the extension of the modified power prior to multiple historical data sets is discussed, followed by its comparison with the random effects model. Several sets of water quality data are studied in this dissertation to illustrate the implementation of the modified power prior approach with normal and Bernoulli models. Since the power prior method uses information from sources other than current data, it has advantages in terms of power and estimation precision for decisions with small sample sizes, relative to methods that ignore prior information. / Ph. D.

Yes / Expert knowledge elicitation lies at the core of judgmental forecasting—a domain that relies fully on the power of such knowledge and its integration into forecasting. Using experts in a demand forecasting framework, this work aims to compare the accuracy improvements and forecasting performances of three judgmental integration methods. To do this, a field study was conducted with 31 experts from four companies. The methods compared were the judgmental adjustment, the 50–50 combination, and the divide-and-conquer. Forecaster expertise, the credibility of system forecasts and the need to rectify system forecasts were also assessed, and mechanisms for performing this assessment were considered. When (a) a forecaster’s relative expertise was high, (b) the relative credibility of the system forecasts was low, and (c) the system forecasts had a strong need of correction, judgmental adjustment improved the accuracy relative to both the other integration methods and the system forecasts. Experts with higher levels of expertise showed higher adjustment frequencies. Our results suggest that judgmental adjustment promises to be valuable in the long term if adequate conditions of forecaster expertise and the credibility of system forecasts are met.

Ce travail contribue à proposer des méthodes et outils de gestion des connaissances (Knowledge Management) propres au domaine de la Fabrication Additive (FA). Le modèle KAM(Knowledge Aided Manufacturing) permet de représenter visuellement les états et actions en lien avec les activités spécifiques à la Fabrication Additive. Il inclut plusieurs types d’objets de connaissance dont le niveau de maturité dépend du degré de certitude ou conviction des experts FA interrogés individuellement et/ou collectivement.Plusieurs techniques et outils d’élicitation personnalisés sont testés puis éprouvés auprès de chercheurs et d’experts industriels impliqués dans la fabrication EBM. L’analyse en termes de connaissances procédurales et déclaratives qui en résulte permet une classification puis une structuration dans le KAM. Ceci nous amène à construire une ontologie sous forme de graphe conceptuel dont la dynamique varie en fonction de contraintes contextuelles (influences, règles d’état, lois) imposées par l’état du monde et de règles d’action dictées par le processus de FA à suivre.Ces éléments de connaissance ont pour but d’aider un utilisateur de FAAO (Fabrication Additive Assistée par Ordinateur) à : mieux appréhender le monde de la FA et en apprendre les principaux concepts ; simuler des actions et en évaluer les impacts en termes de valeur QCT (Qualité, Coût, Temps); décider et agir en conséquence avant de lancer une fabrication. / Additive Manufacturing (AM) has enabled the building of parts with new shapes and geometrical features. As this technology modifies the practices, new knowledge is required for designing and manufacturing properly. To help experts create and share this knowledge through formalization, this research work focuses on knowledge elicitation, analysis and structuring. After defining knowledge concepts we present the SoA in knowledge elicitation and classification. Three case studies present different approaches to capture AM knowledge. The first one points out the assets and limits of three individual elicitation techniques. The second one describes tools and techniques to elicit and structure knowledge about support structures for EBM parts. The last one proposes a method to model AM process rules in relation with EBM technology. As a conclusion, we provide some propositions and recommendations for a better elicitation and formalization of AM knowledge.