Karen Brebner(Dean of Arts)Bobbi Morrison(Dean of Business, acting)St. Francis Xavier University is a public undergraduate liberal arts university located in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is a member of the Maple League, a group of primarily undergraduate universities in Eastern Canada..
Knowing how to create inclusive business schools is crucial for the development of leaders navigating the workforce. This research examines co-curricular First-Year Experience (FYE) programming as an approach to supporting student integration, learning, and experiences. Using a quasi-experimental design, two studies examined academic performance and perceived transition success, belonging, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and time management behaviours across in-person and online learning contexts. In Study 1, in-person students demonstrated higher academic performance and perceived transition success than online students. At the end of the semester, online and in-person students were comparable in outcome expectations, university belonging, self-efficacy, and time management. General belonging was lower among online students across the two measurement occasions however, this difference was already present at baseline and did not change significantly over time. General belonging, university belonging, self-efficacy, and time management were positively associated with perceived transition success, whereas outcome expectations were not a significant unique correlate. Study 2 identified exploratory within-format patterns across co-curricular in-person, bespoke in-person, and bespoke online course formats, with university belonging emerging as a significant correlate of perceived transition success across all three. Together, these findings position co-curricular and bespoke FYE approaches as promising frameworks for supporting inclusive business education while highlighting the central role of belonging in students’ transition experiences.
Under the digital wave, urban governance faces new opportunities and challenges. This study investigates the impact of digital governance on urban environmental quality among RCEP member countries through comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis. Using a novel evaluation index system, environmental performance is measured by air quality index (AQI), carbon emission allowance (CEA), and renewable energy usage rate (REUR), with digital governance policies as the core variable. Employing difference-in-differences analysis with panel data from 2013 to 2023, this study finds that digital governance significantly improved air quality, while showing non-significant downward trends for carbon emission allowances and a significant positive effect on renewable energy usage rates in the baseline analysis, but a negative effect when trade openness is below the threshold. Mediation effect analysis reveals that industrial structure optimization and technological innovation serve as crucial transmission channels. Threshold effect analysis demonstrates that trade openness (threshold: 0.55) significantly moderates the digital governance-environment relationship, with differential policy effectiveness above and below this threshold. These findings provide targeted policy implications for developing economies: implementing differentiated strategies based on trade openness levels, strengthening regional cooperation mechanisms, and coordinating industrial transformation with innovation ecosystem development.
AbstractResearch suggests that tyramine and octopamine have complementary distributions and roles in invertebrates somewhat analogous to those of norepinephrine and epinephrine in vertebrates. Interestingly, these groups of neurotransmitters/hormones share similar biosynthetic pathways that include the apparently homologous enzymes tyramine-β hydroxylase (TBH) and dopamine-β hydroxylase (DBH), which convert tyramine to octopamine and dopamine to norepinephrine, respectively. In this paper we report sequence alignments and Western blots that support the homology of TBH and DBH, as well as validate the use of an antibody raised against a DBH target sequence for immunohistochemical analysis of octopaminergic neural elements in molluscs. Accordingly, we found that DBH and octopamine immunoreactivities did indeed colocalize in several, but not all, neurons in the buccal, cerebral, and pedal ganglia of the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis. Additional, apparently off-target labeling was also observed that warrants future examination. It was noteworthy, however, that no colocalization was found between DBH and tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactivities, thus providing no evidence for norepinephrine synthesis within the central nervous system of this mollusc. These results expand on previous descriptions of neuroanatomical examinations of L. stagnalis and reinforce the argument that DBH and TBH are homologous proteins, thus supporting DBH/TBH as a target to investigate octopaminergic localization and function in molluscs and, more broadly, among invertebrates.
Social sanctioning for real or perceived sexual or sexualized behavior is commonly referred to as slut-shaming. While slut-shaming is common in school contexts, gaps remain in understanding both the individual and school-climate factors associated with slut-shaming and the consequences of slut-shaming for school outcomes like school attendance. Employing a sample of 1200 youth (ages 12-18; M = 14.69, SD = 1.87), this study linked slut-shaming victimization with (a) individual and school-level characteristics relating to bias-based victimization and safety for marginalized students, and (b) skipping school for safety concerns accounting for demographic factors, school context, and overlapping constructs (i.e. peer victimization, sexual harassment, and bias-based victimization). Findings suggest the need to address slut-shaming specifically in intervention and prevention approaches aimed at improving school climate.
This qualitative study examined youth and their front-line working (FLW, eg., health professionals, teachers) parents throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study was to gain insight into their lived experiences, to learn how to better support youth and their families in recovering from the pandemic and in future public health crises. Convenience sampling was used to recruit one child (11–18 years) and one FLW parent (> 18 years) as dyads from a larger mixed methods study. Virtual, semistructured interviews were conducted July–September 2022 to elicit perspectives on wellbeing in COVID-19. Inductive thematic analysis was performed. The data from 10 interviews (5 dyads) resulted in three prominent themes and ten subthemes. The first theme, Stressors to Youth Wellbeing, includes three subthemes highlighting difficulties youth experienced with overreliance on the virtual world and inability to socialize with peers and participate in hobbies. The second theme, Complexities of Parent’s Role as FLW, is divided into four subthemes discussing unique fears, stressors, and trade-offs experienced by front-line workers and families. Lastly, Coping as a Family Unit identifies how families adapted to pandemic-related changes. Front-line worker families in our sample identified critical challenges faced during COVID-19, shedding light on the resiliency of children when placed in tough circumstances. Meaningful policies and family-centred supports are needed to address the emotional, social, physical, and practical needs of frontline-worker families during post-pandemic recovery and future public health crises.
