The prevalence of waterpipe smoking exceeds that of cigarettes among adolescents in the Middle East where waterpipe is believed as less harmful, less addictive and can be a safer alternative to cigarettes. This dissertation tested the gateway hypothesis that waterpipe can provide a bridge to initiate cigarette smoking, identified the predictors of cigarette smoking progression, and identified predictors of waterpipe smoking progression among a school-based sample of Jordanian adolescents (mean age ± SD) (12.7 ±0.61) years at baseline. Data for this research have been drawn from Irbid Longitudinal Study of smoking behavior, Jordan (2008-2011). The grouped-time survival analysis showed that waterpipe smoking was associated with a higher risk of cigarette smoking initiation compared to never smokers (P < 0.001) and this association was dose dependent (P < 0.001). Predictors of cigarette smoking progression were peer smoking and attending public schools for boys, siblings’ smoking for girls, and the urge to smoke for both genders. Predictors of waterpipe smoking progression were enrollment in public schools, frequent physical activity, and low refusal self-efficacy for boys, ever smoking cigarettes, friends’ and siblings’ waterpipe smoking for girls. Awareness of harms of waterpipe among boys and seeing warning labels on the tobacco packs by girls were protective against waterpipe smoking progression. In Conclusion, waterpipe can serve as a gateway to cigarette smoking initiation among adolescents. Waterpipe and cigarette smoking progressions among initiators were solely family-related among girls, and mainly peer-related among boys. The unique gender differences for both cigarette and waterpipe smoking among Jordanian adolescents in Irbid call for cultural and gender-specific smoking prevention interventions to prevent the progression of smoking among initiators.

Studies over the past couple of decades have depicted loneliness as a significant concern to physical health, although its meaning for overall health outcomes is still unclear. The precise impact of loneliness on life expectancy and on specific disease processes remains unknown. With regression modeling techniques, this thesis uses data from the Alameda County Health and Ways of Living Study to characterize the impact of loneliness on self-rated health, mortality, and fatalities from specific diseases. A key hypothesis is that loneliness as a health problem hinges on its persistence over time. This hypothesis is also tested by examining the reliability of the loneliness measure across the full 34 years of the survey. A second test is to examine its interplay with marital status as a mutable social circumstance. Results show that loneliness is a risk factor for poor self-rated health, non-ischemic cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, infections, and overall mortality. Results also show that loneliness need not be a stable problem across the life span in order to pose health risks. The reliability of the loneliness measure fades across time and levels of loneliness also vary with changes in marital status. Loneliness did not clearly mediate the impact of marital status on self-rated health, mortality, or specific causes of death. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

The roles of shame and guilt, and their relationships to empathy, have not been modelled adequately as key factors in moral decision-making in the study of violence. This research will test the different roles of empathy, shame, and guilt in violence decision-making using a Situational Action Theory perspective. Qualitative in-depth interviews were carried out with a violent offender subsample taken from the longitudinal Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) in order to explore the role of moral emotion in specific real-life violent events. In addition, quantitative questionnaire indices enable comparison of the violent offender subsample with the remaining PADS+ study sample. Persistent offenders report significantly lower levels of empathy, shame and guilt on the quantitative indices, and weak empathy, shame, and guilt in their detailed recollections of specific acts of violence, e.g., “there’s not much guilt involved in the whole situation to be honest” (Sam, interview 39). The primary conclusion is that individuals with weak empathy, shame, and guilt are more likely to commit acts of violence. These study findings give insight into the real world, situational application of empathy, shame, and guilt, and provide strong support for the role of weak morality in violence decision-making.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic, inflammatory rheumatic disease that has a highly variable disease course. Three biologic agents, adalimumab, etanercept, and infliximab, have been developed for the treatment of AS. We conducted three studies: 1) an exploratory analysis of a year-long longitudinal dataset to gain insight into the variability of disease activity, physical function, and well-being and to explore the relationship between these outcome measures; 2) a systematic review of the available evidence for the efficacy of biologic treatment; 3) a systematic review of potential adverse effects of this treatment. We found that repeated measures of disease activity, function and well-being fluctuate considerably between patients, with complex patterns occurring over time within patients. There was mostly high quality evidence that these biologics are efficacious against placebo. We did not find evidence of an increase in serious adverse events or serious infections from short-term randomized controlled trials.

Background: Suicidal thoughts affect 12% of Canadian adolescents. Previous research has linked many factors to suicidality but has not considered how these factors may act together or their effect on non-mental health outcomes. Methods: I used the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth to construct predictive models for suicidal thinking. Recursive partitioning models were constructed and the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) for suicidal thoughts and secondary outcomes was calculated. I tested the models in the Avon Longitudinal Survey of Parents and Children. Results: Predictive model sensitivity was 24.2%, specificity was 89.8%, PPV was 24.7%, and NPV was 89.5% and had similar accuracy in the second dataset. The models were better at predicting other adverse outcomes compared to suicidal ideas. Conclusion: Exposure to multiple risk factors is predictive of several poor outcomes in adolescence including suicidal thoughts.

Safety training and safety climate are widely researched topics in the area of safety management. Safety training, as one of the safety interventions, is believed to be an antecedent of safety climate improvement within organisations. The rapid advancement in the safety management field has also raised many questions, mainly regarding the roles of safety training and safety climate within organisations. Recent literature has viewed safety climate as a mediating variable between organisational policies and practices (such as safety training) and safety outcomes. Nevertheless, to date far too few attempts have been made to empirically study the impacts and influence of safety training on safety climate change and to subsequently improve safety outcomes over a period of time, especially in developing countries like Malaysia. To facilitate the expansion of current theoretical perspectives, the research attempts to improve our understanding of safety training's impact on achieving a positive safety culture (via safety climate changes), particularly with regard to improved safety outcomes over a period of time. A quantitative approach, using a longitudinal panel design, was employed for the purpose of data collection. The results were based on two data collections carried out in a Malaysian manufacturing plant in 2008 and 2009. The response rate was 83 percent (N=330) in Time 1, 2008 and 98 percent (N=402) in Time 2, 2009. The findings of this study revealed that there was a significant improvement in all safety training impact subscales indicating that employees' perceived their level of safety knowledge and skill transfer, safe work practices, and their understanding of safety and risk to all be higher in Time 2. The findings of this study also revealed significant improvements in the safety climate dimensions related to Management Attitude and Management Action, indicating that the management role has been viewed as crucial in improving and supporting employees' and organisations' safety. Over a period of time the positive correlation between safety training and safety climate became stronger with a significance difference of .005, where in Time 1, r=.740 and in Time 2, r=.745. This finding adds to the theoretical proposition that safety training is an antecedent to improving safety climate. Similarly, safety outcomes have significantly improved over a period of time and have a negative correlation with safety training and safety climate. Overall, the current study has gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of safety training impacts and its influence on safety climate, particularly with regard to the improvement of safety outcomes. However, this study has thrown up a number of questions that are in need of further investigation. The need for further research to investigate the effectiveness of specific safety training intervention with the addition of motivational factors, and its relation to safety climate over a period of time in various industries, remain crucial.

This dissertation investigates the effects and value of instructional activities for improving second language use of English articles. After reviewing a number of issues concerning pedagogical, linguistic, psycholinguistic, and internal validity, this study presents the results of eight longitudinal time-series case studies of adult Japanese learners of English residing in Vancouver, Canada, four of whom received grammatical explanations, input processing activities, and output practice activities regarding English article use. Learner development was assessed on three different narrative retelling tasks (spoken, written, and cloze) and the production was analysed with reference to specific contexts of use, indicating the form-function mappings that comprised the learners' interlanguage knowledge. The results indicated that the learners' interlanguage production exhibited (a) the anticipated task variation, with greater suppliance of the on tasks that allowed greater attention to form, and (b) the anticipated discoursal variation, with the supplied more consistently when it was primed as a redundant element on the written task and with the supplied less consistently when it was efficiently deleted as a redundant element on the spoken task. The results also indicated the variable nature of individual development and the value of assessing development longitudinally on different tasks. Importantly, the results indicated that the learners improved or continued improving after instruction, and strongly suggested that instruction can cause automatization of interlanguage knowledge. This finding suggests that form-focused instruction may be valuable for second language learning, and that pedagogical positions opposing form-focused instruction may need to be revised or abandoned. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Language recovery was examined in 108 individuals with aphasia in the chronic phase of recovery who participated in various forms of aphasia treatment over extended periods of time. The Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) was administered at multiple time points and Aphasia Quotient (AQ) scores were used as a measure of language performance over time. As a group, the cohort showed an improvement of +6.52 AQ points, yielding an average rate of change of +4.07 AQ points per year. The rate of change was greatest at earlier times post onset (between three months and two years), and improvement was greatest for individuals with aphasia in the moderate severity range. Age, sex, and fluency did not have a significant effect on recovery. Education level had marginal predictive value in the direction of those with less education showing greater rate of improvement. These results suggest that language recovery continues during the chronic stage for individuals who are involved in some form of rehabilitation activity, especially in individuals with aphasia of moderate severity.

Orientador: Paulo Cesar Rocha / Banca: Isabel Cristina Moroz Caccia Gouveia / Banca: Edvard Elias de Souza Filho / Resumo: A planície aluvial do Rio Aguapeí-SP caracteriza-se pela elevada frequência de meandros abandonados, os quais denotam a ocorrência de mudanças cruciais nos regimes de vazão e/ou sedimentos desse rio. Entretanto, em razão da ausência de estudos que visem compreender sua morfodinâmica, desconhece-se a escala temporal das referidas mudanças, bem como suas causas e implicações na morfologia do canal. Neste viés, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo geral identificar os ajustes ocorridos na morfologia dos meandros do Rio Aguapeí-SP em virtude da influência dos principais controles do sistema fluvial. A pesquisa teve como respaldo metodológico os princípios da Teoria Geral dos Sistemas. A avaliação das formas do perfil longitudinal deste rio foi realizada com base em sua correlação com os dados do meio físico regional; estabelecimento do perfil longitudinal de equilíbrio e; aplicação do índice RDE. Houve a constatação de três anomalias, as quais estão relacionadas à erosão diferencial e ao controle do curso d'água exercido por feições estruturais. Com o intuito de compreender a resposta geomórfica do canal perante às referidas anomalias, foi estabelecida uma análise regressiva do gradiente do vale com o índice de sinuosidade do canal, a qual demonstrou uma correlação negativa entre tais variáveis em virtude das diferenças longitudinais da composição litológica do leito do rio. Em escala de detalhe, realizou-se a quantificação das mudanças espaçotemporais ocorridas na morfologia de dois trechos específicos do rio, localizados no médio-curso superior e no baixo curso junto à foz. Observou-se que o canal sofreu grandes alterações ao longo de três cenários - 1962, 1979/1986, 2010... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The Aguapeí River floodplain, located in São Paulo state - Brazil, is characterized by high frequency of oxbow lakes, which suggest the occurrence of crucial changes in flow and sediment regimes of the river. However, due to lack of studies aiming to understand its morphodynamic, the timescale of these changes as well their causes and implications in channel morphology are unknown. In this sense, the present study aimed to identify the adjustments occurred in meanders morphology of Aguapeí River due to the influence of the main controls on fluvial system. The methodological support of the research was the principles of general systems theory. The assessment of the forms in river longitudinal profile was carried out through the correlation to the physical environment data in a regional scale; the establishment of the graded river profile and; the application of Hack index. Based on that, three anomalies were detected, which are related to the differential erosion and the channel control exerted by structural features. In order to understand the channel geomorphic response to such anomalies, a regression analysis of the valley gradient to sinuosity index was established. It showed a negative correlation between these variables due to differences in the lithological compositions of the riverbed. In detailed scale, the spatio-temporal changes in the morphology of two specific reaches of the river - in the upper-middle course and lower course next to mouth - were quantified. It was verified that the channel has undergone significant changes over three years - 1962, 1979/1986 and 2010. The causes of these changes can be both allogeneic as autogenic. Regarding the allogeneic ones, the climate was considered the main cause of channel changes... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

The current study examined whether variables that have been found to influence treatment outcome serve as mediators of a child and adolescent cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) anxiety program at multiple time points throughout the intervention. The study also examined mediating variables measured at multiple time points during treatment to determine the time lags necessary for changes in the mediator variable to translate into changes on treatment gains. Participants were 168 youth (ages 6 to 16 years; 54% males) and their mothers who presented to the Child Anxiety and Phobia Program (CAPP) at Florida International University (FIU). Overall, results indicate that the mediators at multiple time points influenced youth anxiety in a fluctuating manner, such that a decrease in skills at one given session caused changes in youth anxiety at a later session. This dynamic between the mediator and outcome may be reflective of the process of therapeutic change and suggests that skills gained from session to session took time to exert their effect on youth anxiety. The methodology employed helps to elucidate how variables mediate treatment outcome in youth anxiety disorders.