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U of T linguistics prof researches Torontonians' unique speaking style

siddiq22 — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 19:12:49 +0000

U of T linguistics prof researches Torontonians' unique speaking style

siddiq22 Mon, 07/31/2023 - 15:12

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Derek Denis, an associate professor of linguistics at U of T Mississauga, is researching how Toronto's diverse languages are influencing English locally (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Topic

Subheadline

Derek Denis and his students are examining Toronto's city slang and distinctive accent

Do you say "Toe-rohn-to" or "Tronno"? And what about that old stereotype that Canadians tend to say "aboot"?

While such distinctions in how we speak English are subtle and may be explained by a difference in dialect or variety, it’s how these subtle changes occur in a multicultural city like Toronto that interests Derek Denis, an associate professor of linguistics in the department of language studies at the ��߲ݴ�ý Mississauga.

While teaching one of his courses, Denis told his students about Multicultural London English (MLE), a multiethnolect – a way of speaking with influences from multiple different languages – studied by linguists.

A subsequent conversation with a student led him to wonder if Toronto also had its own multiethnolect.

Denis and U of T Mississauga students Vidhya Elango, Nur Sakinah Nor Kamal, Maria Velasco and Srishti Prashar conducted research and found that the Greater Toronto Area does indeed have its own multiethnolect – which they call Multicultural Toronto English (MTE).

It’s a way of speaking that arises from a variety of unique features present in Toronto, including the vast diversity of languages spoken in the city. The team's findings were published earlier this year in the Journal of English Linguistics.

“I was telling [students] about the development of a new pronoun – which is the ‘man’ pronoun – in MLE,” Denis says.

“Pronouns are slow to change linguistically, so the fact there is this new pronoun was exciting, and one of my students put her hand up and said, ‘We have that here, too.’”

An example of this is, “I almost missed the TTC, but mans made it here anyway,” where “mans” replaces the pronoun “I.” Variations heard in Toronto and in London include man, mans and mandem.

Indeed, “mans,” “Tronno“ and other such terms are features of MTE, Denis says.

The study found that among immigrant youth communities in the Greater Toronto Area, the way vowels are pronounced differed from previous reports of how Canadian English is spoken.

While similar phenomena have been documented in European cities, there hasn’t been a lot of research on the subject in North America, prompting Denis' interest in looking into the way Torontonians speak.

“I grew up in Scarborough, in a pretty diverse area,” Denis says. “You hear all kinds of English around you, all kinds of accents. So I started looking into this in an academic way.”

Denis’ team of work-study students collected data through interviews of youth in ethnolinguistically diverse regions of the GTA, which involved a set of questions to answer, casual conversations and a word list to read aloud.

“We noticed particular vowel realizations,” he says. “So, we created a list of about 100 or so words that had those target sounds in them.”

The researchers investigated a mix of vocalic phenomena, but two of them – “Canadian raising” (for example, the difference in the way Canadians and Americans pronounce “about”) and “goat” monophthongization – particularly caught Denis’ attention.

“Canadian raising affects two vowels,” Denis says. “When the vowel is followed by a certain sound, the realization of that vowel is a little bit higher in the mix. It’s subtle.”

However, the not-so-subtle “aboot” is what Americans hear us say, as the phenomenon doesn’t exist in American English. Denis says the presence of such a stereotype results in a social meaning attached to how the word is pronounced. As a result, his team's research shows that young Torontonians are trying to avoid pronouncing the word in any way resembling “aboot.”

As for the phenomenon of “goat” monophthongization, Denis explains that a monophthong is a sound formed by one vowel in a syllable – like “cat” – while a diphthong is a sound formed with a combination of two vowels in a syllable, like “coin,“ or the subtler “goat.”

“It’s the process of a vowel that is normatively produced as a diphthong becoming a monophthong, so there’s less movement of the tongue,” Denis says.

Denis and his team found that in MTE, the youth surveyed exhibited “monophthongization” – a two-vowel syllable turning into a one-vowel syllable – with the word “goat,” where the “oa” sound became more of an “oh” sound: “goat versus “goht.”

“‘Goat’ monophthongization is probably the phenomenon we can most clearly link from an influence from Jamaica patois,” Denis says. “The vowel in Jamaican patois is not quite exactly the same, but we can trace the influence to it.”

MTE results from what linguists called a “feature pool,” where several variables influence how a language slowly changes over time. In Toronto, some of those features might be associated with ethnic diversity, such as with the “goat” example. But some features arise from the authenticity of being from a particular community – such as in the difference of how the word “Toronto“ is pronounced within the city itself or by others from elsewhere.

The results of the team's research showed a great deal of variability in the ways of speaking among youth in immigrant communities – the result of various changes and developments in how English is spoken across Toronto, notes Denis, who continues his research on MTE and plans to publish a book on the findings.

“It’s like this mixture that people pick and choose from,” Denis says. “That’s why I hesitate to call this a dialect because it’s not exactly that – it’s a pool of features that individuals use to develop their own linguistic style.”

U of T researcher leads study on parenting resources for Indigenous fathers and Two-Spirit individuals

siddiq22 — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 20:16:27 +0000

U of T researcher leads study on parenting resources for Indigenous fathers and Two-Spirit individuals

siddiq22 Tue, 07/04/2023 - 16:16

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(photo by FatCamera/Getty Images)

Rebecca Biason

Topic

Our Community

Indigenous

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

LGBTQ

Research

Subheadline

The Fathers of the Next Generation study is collaborating with Indigenous fathers and community members to learn more about what resources could support them in their parenting journey

Amy Wright, a nurse practitioner and researcher at the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, is collaborating with Indigenous fathers and community members to build a set of parenting resources aimed specifically at supporting men and Two-Spirit people along their journey into parenthood.

The Fathers of the Next Generation study, which is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, is built on a previous scoping study conducted by Wright that revealed gaps in available resources for fathers, and the need for them and their partners to be able to access resources related specifically to their experiences and transition into parenthood.

Though the study is still in its early stages, Wright said that it has already been informative to hear from fathers during ongoing consultations and the interview process.

Amy Wright (supplied image)

“This is much bigger than the Western conceptualization of what a parenting program should look like – it is more holistic and culturally and emotionally centered, instead of task-based,” Wright says.

“Yes, they want to know about diapering and supporting their partner in breastfeeding, but they also want to know more about their traditional role as a father; how to spiritually guide their children. Some are on a healing journey, and are interested in understanding how to be a father in relation to how they have been fathered.”

The study’s steering committee, which includes members from the Six Nations of the Grand River, has been essential not only in recruiting fathers to take part in the study, but also in providing important insights and guidance around developing the study using Indigenous ways of knowing.

“There is a deep and recurring theme among the fathers we have interviewed that points to their desire to communicate and ground their parenting within their culture and spirituality alongside other important aspects of parenting like nutrition, health and emotional needs,” Wright says.

Wihse Spring (supplied image)

Committee member Wihsé Spring, who identifies as a Two-Spirit father, wanted to contribute to the study because of his own experience entering fatherhood – and also because of the way he has seen fathers often treated.

“Sometimes it can seem like dads are just a decoration – and that’s not true. We want to have the resources to get rid of that label and have the confidence moving forward to not only be good fathers, but also explore the connection to our culture and community,” Spring says.

What role fathers played before colonization and how to be an Indigenous father are key questions that have come up in the early stages of the study. When asked about what specific resources would be beneficial, most of the fathers participating in the study said they were keen to see in-class workshops around parenting facilitated by fathers, and to be role models in their own healing if they grew up without a father.

“An important element that came out of our previous scoping study was a desire from the men to build a network of peers where fathers can learn from and support one another,” Wright says.

“Having meals together or participating in traditional or on-the-land activities would also help break down any barriers of engagement and encourage fathers to seek out health promotion programs and prenatal/postnatal resources.”

David Johnson (supplied image)

Parenting in a positive manner and stopping a perpetual cycle of generational trauma is what motivated David Johnson, a registered nurse and member of the Six Nations of the Grand River community, to participate in the study as a member of the steering committee – and to encourage other new fathers in his community to also take part.

Johnson describes himself as a changemaker – as a proud father to two young girls, he acknowledges he has been fortunate to have had his parents in his life to learn from and lean on for support.

But he says many of his peers are facing child custody issues, or negative assumptions about themselves as fathers, which is why he encourages them to have their voice heard through the study in the hopes of revitalizing the role of fathers.

“Lots of men in my generation are stepping up as fathers, and having a variety of resources – including workshops taught by other fathers – will just hit closer to home,” Johnson says.

“Showing men how to be more in touch with expressing themselves, working through their own healing journey and helping them to not deviate from the main goal of supporting their kid, could make a world of difference.”

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Parenting

Astronomers discover new link between dark matter and 'clumpiness' of the universe

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:30:06 +0000

Astronomers discover new link between dark matter and 'clumpiness' of the universe

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 06/28/2023 - 13:30

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(image by Volker Springel (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics) et al)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Breaking Research

Astronomy

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics

Research

Researchers at the ��߲ݴ�ý have revealed a theoretical breakthrough that may explain both the nature of invisible dark matter and the large-scale structure of the universe known as the cosmic web.

Their study, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, establishes a new link between these two longstanding problems in astronomy, opening new possibilities for understanding the cosmos.

Keir Rogers (supplied image)

The research suggests that the “clumpiness problem,” which centres on the unexpectedly even distribution of matter on large scales throughout the cosmos, may be a sign that dark matter is composed of hypothetical, ultra-light particles called axions.

The implications of proving the existence of hard-to-detect axions extend beyond understanding dark matter and could address fundamental questions about the nature of the universe itself.

“If confirmed with future telescope observations and lab experiments, finding axion dark matter would be one of the most significant discoveries of this century,” says lead author Keir Rogers, Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science .

“At the same time, our results suggest an explanation for why the universe is less clumpy than we thought – an observation that has become increasingly clear over the last decade or so, and currently leaves our theory of the universe uncertain.”

Dark matter, comprising 85 percent of the universe’s mass, is invisible because it does not interact with light. Scientists study its gravitational effects on visible matter to understand how it is distributed in the universe.

A leading theory proposes that dark matter is made of axions, described in quantum mechanics as “fuzzy” due to their wave-like behaviour. Unlike discrete point-like particles, axions can have wavelengths larger than entire galaxies. This fuzziness influences the formation and distribution of dark matter, potentially explaining why the universe is less clumpy than predicted in a universe without axions.

A computer simulation of a section of the universe with and without axions, showing how the dark matter cosmic web structure is less clumpy if containing axions. For scale, the Milky Way galaxy would sit inside one of the small green dots that are called halos (image by Alexander Spencer London/Alex Laguë)

This lack of clumpiness has been observed in large galaxy surveys, challenging the other prevailing theory that dark matter consists only of heavy, weakly interacting sub-atomic particles called WIMPs. Despite experiments like the Large Hadron Collider, no evidence supporting the existence of WIMPs has been found.

“In science, it’s when ideas break down that new discoveries are made and age-old problems are solved,” Rogers says.

For the study, the research team – led by Rogers and including members of associate professor Renée Hložek’s research group at the Dunlap Institute, as well as from the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute for Advanced Study, Columbia University and King’s College London – analyzed observations of relic light from the Big Bang, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), obtained from prior telescope surveys.

The researchers compared these CMB data with galaxy clustering data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which maps the positions of approximately a million galaxies in the nearby universe. By studying the distribution of galaxies, which mirrors the behaviour of dark matter under gravitational forces, they measured fluctuations in the amount of matter throughout the universe and confirmed its reduced clumpiness compared to predictions.

A map of galaxies in the local universe as seen by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which the researchers used to test the axion theory. Each dot is the position of a galaxy and the Earth sits in the middle of the map
(image courtesy Sloan Digital Sky Survey)

The researchers then conducted computer simulations to predict the appearance of relic light and the distribution of galaxies in a universe with long dark matter waves. These calculations aligned with CMB data from the Big Bang and galaxy clustering data, supporting the notion that fuzzy axions could account for the clumpiness problem.

Future research will involve large-scale surveys to map millions of galaxies and provide precise measurements of clumpiness, including observations over the next decade with the Rubin Observatory. The researchers hope to compare their theory to direct observations of dark matter through gravitational lensing – an effect where dark matter clumpiness is measured by how much it bends the light from distant galaxies, akin to a giant magnifying glass. They also plan to investigate how galaxies expel gas into space and how this affects the dark matter distribution to further confirm their results.

Understanding the nature of dark matter is one of the most pressing fundamental questions and key to understanding the origin and future of the universe.

Presently, scientists do not have a single theory that simultaneously explains gravity and quantum mechanics – a theory of everything. The most popular theory of everything over the last few decades is string theory, which posits another level below the quantum level, where everything is made of string-like excitations of energy. According to Rogers, detecting a fuzzy axion particle could be a hint that the string theory of everything is correct.

“We have the tools now that could enable us to finally understand something experimentally about the century-old mystery of dark matter, even in the next decade or so – and that could give us hints to answers about even bigger theoretical questions,” Rogers says.

“The hope is that the puzzling elements of the universe are solvable.”

U of T Scarborough launches new centre for music and community engagement

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 23 May 2023 15:55:01 +0000

U of T Scarborough launches new centre for music and community engagement

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 05/23/2023 - 11:55

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A new music centre at U of T Scarborough recently hosted its first symposium (photo by Alexa Battler)

Topic

Subheadline

SoundLife Scarborough will collaborate with local community groups on ways to remove barriers to making music

A new centre launched by the music and culture program at the ��߲ݴ�ý Scarborough is removing barriers to making music – and not just for students.

Called SoundLife Scarborough (SLS), the research centre is teaming up with local organizations to create more opportunities for music-making on and off campus.

“The centre supports community partnerships and community-engaged research excellence grounded in the principle of reciprocity,” says Laura Risk, SLS co-lead and an assistant professor in U of T Scarborough’s department of arts, culture and media. “We're trying to help facilitate connections and really think about how we can contribute to the already vibrant musical world in Scarborough.”

SLS co-lead Laura Risk and symposium attendees participated in a session that traced the history of the steelpan (photo by Alexa Battler)

SLS faculty member Roger Mantie calls the centre “the glue” that will hold together the music and culture program’s partnerships, initiatives, research projects and programming. Professors in the program have frequently engaged local organizations as part of their courses and research, but the centre will allow U of T Scarborough to maintain and build these relationships beyond individual courses or projects, he says.

“Now we have a hub that can create stability and sustainability,” says Mantie, an associate professor in the department of arts, culture and media. “And organizations have a point of contact beyond a singular faculty member.”

The centre will find new ways to use the university’s resources and strengths to support those pursuing their love of music. Risk says new partnerships and programming will begin with the question: “What’s in it for the community?”

“SLS is meant to be a very porous interface between the university and the community,” says Lynn Tucker, SLS lead and associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of arts, culture and media.

SLS co-lead Lynn Tucker (left) and community members got hands-on at the Mapping Music Pathways symposium (photo by Alexa Battler)

All programming is meant be free and accessible. It already includes pop-up and weekly music-making events for hand-drumming and ukulele, along with Brazilian Maracatu sessions with Juno-nominated master percussionist Aline Morales.

“The age range for some of those Maracatu sessions is eight to 80,” says Tucker. “We have families coming in with their kids. We've had people come in for date night. People drive up from downtown on a Thursday evening to attend.”

Music program marching to a new beat

SLS is just one of the ways the program is rethinking the ways music is studied at university. Students don’t have to audition to get into the program, and any student can join its bands, choirs, string orchestra and small ensembles – no matter their course load or field of study. The program evolved in response to students’ interests and goals. In 2015, it adopted three new areas of focus that guided what would be taught and who would teach it: community music, music and society, and music creativity and technology.

“The main thing that differentiates it from almost every other university music program in Canada is that there's no audition to get in. Different and diverse musical backgrounds are celebrated in the curriculum and you get people from all walks of life,” says SLS research associate Lloyd McArton, a PhD candidate in U of T’s Faculty of Music who is an assistant professor of music education at the University of Lethbridge. “The focuses are really special – music and technology isn't really prominent in a lot of music programs in Canada.”

SLS research associate Lloyd McArton was one of several symposium attendees to try out the steelpan (photo by Alexa Battler)

The refocusing involved four new staff hires and several new courses, including ones on DJ cultures and digital music creation, as well as others that explore music’s intersection with health, movies, society and technologies. A suite of courses dedicated to community music were also introduced so students could observe and interact with local organizations’ music programming.

One of the community music courses’ culminating projects is to write a mock grant proposal for a new community music project in collaboration with an existing organization and then pitch the idea to the class and community partners. Fourth-year student and SLS research assistant Delicia Raveenthrarajan had previously acted as a teaching-artist-in-choir with Sistema Toronto, a free music program for students in underserved communities –so she proposed a new staff role dedicated to community engagement. The organization has since used her proposal to inform their systems and practices.

“It was really cool because I got to interact with them through my studies and in my professional life,” says Raveenthrarajan, who is double majoring in music and culture and mental health studies. “It's important to de-centre the university at some points so we’re going out into the community and amplifying the voices of community partners.”

U of T Mississauga students lead efforts to understand justice in global conflicts

siddiq22 — Fri, 19 May 2023 14:12:01 +0000

U of T Mississauga students lead efforts to understand justice in global conflicts

siddiq22 Fri, 05/19/2023 - 10:12

Cutline

From left: Pedro Andrade, Fatimah Ahsan, Rohit Bahal, Nicole Fernando, Geoff Dancy, Joseph Mangin, Mary Kazek, and Farah Radwan are among the researchers working on the Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools project (supplied photo)

Topic

Global Lens

Global

Human Rights

International Relations

A group of students at the ��߲ݴ�ý Mississauga are at the forefront of efforts to understand transitional justice across the globe – a scholarly field that confronts how to pursue accountability for human rights violations in the context of authoritarianism and violent political conflict.

Working with Geoff Dancy, associate professor in U of T Mississauga's department of political science, nine students are collecting data on criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, legal amnesties and reparations policies in all the regions of the world.

Their goal is “to provide a comprehensive database for academic research, and to predict human rights trends internationally," says team member Pedro Andrade, a fourth-year undergraduate student from Brazil.

Dancy, post-doctoral researcher Oskar Timo Thoms and the group of undergraduate students received a $3-million grant from Global Affairs Canada – administered jointly between Harvard University and U of T – for their Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools (TJET) project.

TJET's student researchers have developed a wide range of expertise while working on the project.

Mary Kazek, an undergraduate student studying international affairs and economics, has become a go-to authority on criminal proceedings against Chilean military and intelligence officers who were responsible for extensive human rights violations during the Pinochet regime.

Collecting data on over 500 prosecutions has also given Kazek an appreciation for detailed research.

“Political science tends to focus on the macro level and gloss over the details of atrocities and human rights violations, which prevents people from fully understanding the true horrors of what has happened," she says.

Third-year student Fatimah Ahsan, who is a U of T Global Scholar studying political science, has helped finalize an exhaustive database of over 80 truth commissions that were established in the last 50 years – including Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which completed its work in 2015.

“I personally enjoy how much I am able to learn about the cases,” Ahsan says. “Every case I code, I learn something about the country I am working on, including its history and political state.”

Other researchers are focused less on specific mechanisms of justice, and more on overall themes. Political science and criminology student Farah Radwan has spent months studying prosecutions of state agents for sex- and gender-based violence, combing through information on over 17,000 accused rights violators.

“I think the biggest thing I learned while working on this project is that the workload can seem daunting, and it is really time-consuming," she says. "But it is extremely rewarding and fulfilling when it’s done – and done right.”

The detail-oriented work has been challenging yet fulfilling. Through her work with TJET, political science student Nicole Fernando has come to specialize in coding, converting publicly available information into useable data.

“I love the methodical nature of coding – there is a process to follow for examining each case," she notes.

Amid their exacting individual research, the TJET group has come together through regular group meetings and team hangouts on the fifth floor of the Maanjiwe nendamowinan building on the U of T Mississauga campus.

“What has struck me the most is the team-oriented nature of the research. We regularly discuss with each other about our respective work, which gives us a better understanding of our contribution," says Joseph Mangin, a third-year student from France studying politics and international relations who has been going through news articles to collect data on global amnesty laws.

Dancy, who previously worked at Tulane University in New Orleans, brought the TJET project with him when he moved to U of T last summer.

He's effusive about the U of T student researchers currently taking part in the project.

"Not to diminish the work of other teams I’ve led, but this is probably the most joyful and committed group of students I’ve ever worked with," says Dancy, who gives each of his researchers coffee mugs labelled “Researching justice, one cup at a time.”

Dancy, along with colleagues from Harvard University, recently presented findings from TJET's data collection to Global Affairs Canada at a meeting in Ottawa.

“All of the hard work the students have done directly informed high-level policy conversations about how to proceed with transitional justice in contexts such as Ukraine and Ethiopia," he said.

U of T hosts global scholars for NAISA conference on Indigenous Studies

siddiq22 — Thu, 11 May 2023 20:57:30 +0000

U of T hosts global scholars for NAISA conference on Indigenous Studies

siddiq22 Thu, 05/11/2023 - 16:57

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The 14th-annual Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference, which is expected to draw 1,000 attendees from around the world, kicks off in Convocation Hall on U of T's St. George campus (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Topic

Indigenous Initiatives

Centre for Indigenous Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Research

Women and Gender Studies

The ��߲ݴ�ý will welcome Indigenous scholars and researchers from around the world this week for the 14th annual Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference.

The conference, which is expected to draw 1,000 attendees, will be held on U of T’s St. George campus from May 11 to 13.

Susan Hill and Karyn Recollet (photos supplied)

NAISA is an interdisciplinary professional organization that brings together faculty and students from post-secondary institutions (including several U of T scholars); community-based scholars, artists and Elders; and independent professionals working in the field of Indigenous Studies.

“NAISA came about in order to create a place where Indigenous Studies scholars could meet and work on the broad themes that tie us together, and to advance a broader understanding of the importance of Indigenous Studies to academia. Strengthening Indigenous Studies positions us to better support Indigenous communities and Nations,” said conference co-chair Susan Hill, director of U of T’s Centre for Indigenous Studies and an associate professor of Indigenous Studies and history in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

With sessions planned on everything from food sovereignty to language revitalization and contemporary Indigenous cinema, the 2023 event is the first in-person NAISA conference since 2019, when it was hosted by the University of Waikato in New Zealand. U of T had planned to host the 2020 conference, which was cancelled due to the pandemic and rescheduled for this year.

The conference will highlight how Toronto – which originates from the Mohawk word “Tkaronto,” meaning “where the trees stand in the water” – has been home to the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe Peoples and part of the original homelands of the Wendat People.

U of T News spoke with Hill and fellow conference co-chair Karyn Recollet, assistant professor in the Women & Gender Studies Institute in the Faculty of Arts & Science, about what to expect at NAISA 2023 – which will include panel and roundtable discussions, presentations of research papers, film screenings, performances and more.

Hundreds of attendees are coming from around the world – what will they experience at this year’s NAISA conference?

Hill: One of the things that we committed to as the local host committee was to take the lead in terms of our own cultural values that we bring from our specific communities – and also honouring the practices that are common in the Toronto Indigenous community.

One of those key pieces was about ethical care and doing our best to provide spaces that would meet people’s needs – so we were very purposeful in choosing locations that were close together.

It was also important for us to feed our guests – that’s a key value that’s embodied in the communities all around us. When you come to somebody’s home, they will offer you a meal or a beverage. That’s such an important part of hospitality, and in inviting our friends and colleagues from around the world, we want to make sure we’re treating them as if they were coming into our home.

We’re particularly excited about the fact that we've partnered with local Indigenous chefs to help make that happen and to provide our guests with the foods that come from the land and the waters of the territory.

In academia, sometimes we take food for granted and think, “Oh, it's just fuel for the body.” But in Indigenous cultures, we're taught that it's food for our mind, our body and our souls. And so we've tried to make that as fruitful as possible in this gathering, and also in everything we do in nourishing people’s minds, bodies and spirits in the work we’re doing together.

Through NAISA’s call for papers and in your planning, did any themes for the conference emerge?

(photo by Tabassum Siddiqui)

Recollet: In reaching out to our various partners – including U of T Mississauga – when we were starting to imagine what this conference would look like, some very interesting interconnections and webs started to develop, which helped the planning process quite a bit.

We knew that to determine the shape of our gathering, we wanted to focus on Black and Indigenous relationships, on queer and Two-Spirit thought and thinking, and to acknowledge that Toronto is a very special place that has a unique relationship to water. That helped us to think through some of the main ideas and offerings we might be able to have. Drawing on our relationships with the land – and with each other – helped in mapping things out.

What will be some of the highlights at this year’s conference?

Hill: One of the goals that NAISA has always tried to embody with their conferences is recognizing that the papers that get proposed and accepted are going to come from all over the place, but also making sure that there's time and space for both the people coming from other places, as well as the people from the local area, to have the opportunity to learn more about the host area.

Here in in Toronto, we've tried to be really thoughtful about the ways that we curate those particular opportunities – for example, we’ll have walking tours of our campus, OCAD University, Toronto Metropolitan University, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum. So, the folks who are coming to our campus from all over the world have a chance to learn about some of the things that are happening here on the ground in our city, at our universities and arts organizations.

Recollet: Another special moment we’ve envisioned is offering opportunities for graduate-student mentorship, where the students can sit and share a meal together and talk to each other about their work and knowledge transmission.

We’ve also curated spaces called “CARE Hubs” in both the buildings that are hosting the sessions, because sometimes conferences can be draining – you might need a quiet space to centre and just enjoy solitude. So those will have cots, medicines, soothing music, some magazines – spaces to relax and enjoy.

The welcome ceremony at Convocation Hall will feature singers and drummers, and we encourage everyone to visit the book fair and market hall at the Howard Ferguson Dining Hall, where more than 30 publishers and academic institutions will be set up.

What do you hope attendees take away from the conference?

Hill: We hope that all our visitors will have the opportunity to engage with some amazing people who are connected within this global network and are able to walk away with a deeper understanding about the vitality and rigour of Indigenous studies.

A lot of times people think it’s just about culture, but it’s important to understand the deep knowledge that goes into the revitalization and the celebration of the cultures from which we come – and the hard work being put into creating vibrant futures for the generations to come.

Research shows how boosting immune memory could help develop improved flu vaccine

siddiq22 — Thu, 11 May 2023 20:33:55 +0000

Research shows how boosting immune memory could help develop improved flu vaccine

siddiq22 Thu, 05/11/2023 - 16:33

Cutline

PhD student Karen Yeung is one of the recipients of the inaugural EPIC Doctoral Awards for her work on boosting immune memory to enhance protection against influenza (supplied photo)

Betty Zou

Topic

Breaking Research

Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium

EPIC

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Karen Yeung is no stranger to outbreaks of respiratory infections. As a child growing up in Hong Kong, she lived through the first SARS outbreak in 2003 and witnessed the city dealing with repeated threats of bird flu in the years that followed.

Twenty years later, in the midst of a global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, the fourth-year PhD student in the department of immunology at the ��߲ݴ�ý's Temerty Faculty of Medicine is leading critical research to understand how our immune systems respond to influenza infection – and how we might be able to leverage that knowledge to create a long-lasting, universal flu vaccine.

Yeung is one of 31 recipients of the inaugural Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) Doctoral Awards, which supports outstanding students pursuing infectious disease research.

“Current flu vaccines work by inducing an antibody response against a specific component of the influenza virus, but this viral component mutates very quickly every year. This means that the antibodies that you make against this year’s flu vaccine likely won’t match the strain of flu that we’ll see next season,” says Yeung, who is supervised by Tania Watts, a professor of immunology at U of T who holds the Canada Research Chair in anti-viral immunity.

Immune cells called memory CD8+ T cells might hold the key to unlocking broad protection against multiple flu strains. These immune cells retain a memory of a pathogen long after the initial infection, which allows the body to quickly mount a powerful immune response the next time it encounters that pathogen. And unlike the antibodies generated from a flu vaccine, memory T cells recognize parts of the influenza virus that are more likely to remain unchanged between strains and from one year to another.

Previous work from Watts’ lab was the first to show that a protein receptor on CD8+ T cells called 4-1BB is an important player in the formation of memory T cells after a flu infection. 4-1BB is part of a communications cascade that relays cues to regulate the immune system. Yeung’s doctoral research aims to uncover how this pathway is turned on to produce memory CD8+ T cells.

“We’re really interested in how cells can communicate to each other through the language of receptors like 4-1BB and signaling,” Yeung says.

“When you have a lung infection due to flu, what kinds of signals are the CD8+ T cells receiving in the lungs that are helping them transition to memory T cells? How can we manipulate these mechanisms to form more of these memory cells?”

So far Yeung’s work points to monocytes – a type of immune cell that is recruited to the lungs early on during an infection – as providing the activating signal to allow more CD8+ T cells to become memory cells. Next, she’ll be looking at what happens during a secondary flu infection if 4-1BB signaling is disrupted and there are fewer protective memory T cells.

By deepening the understanding of how immune memory develops, Yeung’s research – which is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research – is laying the groundwork for new approaches that could complement existing flu vaccine strategies to elicit a broader and longer-lasting immune response.

“It takes us closer towards a universal flu vaccine strategy, where one shot will be enough to protect against seasonal influenza and future influenza pandemics as well.”

Researchers explore how we depict and perceive emotions through colour and line in visual art

siddiq22 — Wed, 03 May 2023 19:41:52 +0000

Researchers explore how we depict and perceive emotions through colour and line in visual art

siddiq22 Wed, 05/03/2023 - 15:41

Cutline

A new study by U of T researchers confirms the use of certain colours and lines to depict emotions such as joy, as shown in this reference illustration from the study (Damiano, Bernhardt-Walther, et al.)

Topic

Are you feeling blue – or seeing red? Maybe turning green with envy?

You’re not alone in colour-coding your emotions, ��߲ݴ�ý researchers say in a new paper confirming associations between feelings and certain shades and shapes.

Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

In a new study in the Journal of Vision, researchers from the Faculty of Arts & Science's department of psychology and their collaborators have confirmed research identifying consistent associations between certain colours and lines, and particular emotions.

In addition, they’ve shown that it is easier to predict the emotion being depicted with colour drawings than line drawings; and that emotion predictions are more accurate for colour drawings by non-artists than by artists.

“What we confirmed in our study was the systematic use of certain colours and lines to depict certain emotions,” says Dirk Bernhardt-Walther, an associate professor in the department of psychology.

“For example, anger is depicted using red, or in drawings with densely packed lines. Sadness is blue and associated with vertical lines. We use these conventions to portray emotions – and observers perceive the emotions intended.”

The findings could help designers and visual artists convey emotions to users or viewers, or create architectural or designed spaces that evoke positive responses. It could also lead to a better understanding of visual esthetics – how artists depict emotions in their work and whether it evokes the response they desire from viewers.

The study's lead author is Claudia Damiano, a postdoctoral researcher with the department of brain and cognition at KU Leuven in Belgium, and a former graduate student in Bernhardt-Walther's lab. Damiano conducted the research with Pinaki Gayen, a visiting graduate student who came to U of T's department of psychology in 2019 on a Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Research Fellowship. U of T co-authors include Bernhardt-Walther and postdoctoral fellow Morteza Rezanejad, also in the department of psychology.

For the study, Bernhardt-Walther and his colleagues recruited 40 students from visual arts programs at OCAD University and 41 non-artists from STEM programs at U of T. All were instructed to create two abstract drawings – one using colour and one lines – for each of six emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy and wonder.

The researchers began by validating the idea that distinct emotions were depicted in a consistent manner. First, they conducted computational analysis of the lines and colours in all the drawings. They then built a computational model that could predict the emotion from the visual properties of drawings by artists and non-artists.

They found that drawings depicting negative emotions tended to contain more lines and darker colours: red, blue, brown, black and grey. Drawings of positive emotions were less dense, had more curved or oblique lines and contained brighter colours.

Images for joy were predominantly yellow-green, those depicting disgust were a darker green, anger was shown as red while sadness was blue, and so on. The line drawings exhibited different styles of lines – from strong, intersecting lines for anger, to wavy and curved lines for joy.

Sample colour and line drawings for each emotion, made by one artist and one non-artist participating in the study (Damiano, Bernhardt-Walther, et al.)

The team also compared how artists and non-artists conveyed emotions with colours and found that trained artists generally used a smaller number of colours than non-artists and that the colours they used were unconventional. They also discovered that non-artists were better at conveying emotions through colour than artists.

“I believe the reason for this difference could be that non-artists tend to follow convention, whereas artists strive to be innovative – they want to do something distinctive,” Bernhardt-Walther says. “Artists know what the conventions are but they want to break from those conventions in order to provoke, stand out and create something special.”

The researchers also found that it is easier to guess the emotion a colour drawing is portraying than in a line drawing. They speculate that this is because the associations between colours and emotions are stronger for people than those between lines and emotions.

And while the study did not delve into whether these associations are innate or learned, Bernhardt-Walther draws on his own research and that of other academics, noting these colour-emotion matches aren’t just culturally learned – in other words, we didn’t learn them simply from the paintings, illustrations and movies viewed throughout our lives.

“There is generally very good agreement on the association between colours and emotions across cultures that have developed independently,” Bernhardt-Walther says.

“There is consensus that red has significance because it is associated with blood – whether it’s your prey’s blood or your own. Our faces turn red when we are angry and grey or green when we feel nauseous. Darkness is scary because of the unknown danger.

“And in addition to being associated with sadness, blue is also calming – and the obvious association with the sky and water and being in the open where you are less at risk from a danger like a predator. We imitate these colours in artwork to specifically evoke these emotions.”

For Bernhardt-Walther, the study is consistent with his growing interest in the effect of the visual environment on our emotions.

“I’m studying visual esthetics more and more now as part of my research,” he says.

“I want to know what people find esthetically pleasing and why, because I think it is an integral part of our perceptual experience. Liking or disliking what we see is directly related to how we think and how we perceive the world.”

Astronomers double number of known 'repeating fast radio bursts' using new data tools

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 01 May 2023 15:35:57 +0000

Astronomers double number of known 'repeating fast radio bursts' using new data tools

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 05/01/2023 - 11:35

Cutline

An artist’s impression of the CHIME telescope, used by researchers from the CHIME/FRB Collaboration in detecting flashes of radio waves known as 'fast radio bursts' (illustration by CHIME/FRB Collaboration, with artistic additions by Luka Vlajić)

Meaghan MacSween

Topic

Breaking Research

Astronomy

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Research

Space

Astronomers in the Canadian-led CHIME/FRB Collaboration – including researchers from the ��߲ݴ�ý – have doubled the number of known repeating sources of mysterious flashes of radio waves, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). Through the discovery of 25 new repeating sources (for a total of 50), the team has also solidified the idea that all FRBs may eventually repeat.

FRBs are considered one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy, but their exact origins are unknown.

Astronomers do know that they come from far outside of our Milky Way, and are likely produced by the cinders left behind after stars die. Most of the thousands of FRBs that astronomers have discovered to date have only ever been seen to burst once, but there is a small subset that have been seen to burst multiple times.

One of the big questions is whether the repeating FRBs, and those that don’t repeat, have similar origins. One key clue is that the two populations seem to have different characteristics – such as the durations of the bursts they produce and the range of frequencies emitted. This has led to the consensus that there are possibly two distinct categories of FRBs: repeaters and one-offs, with different origins.

Finding more repeating sources is key to answering this question – and in new research published in the Astrophysical Journal, the CHIME/FRB Collaboration presents 25 new sources. While the team had previously established repeating FRBs as a class of sources, this is the first time they have combed through the data to find every repeating source detected so far, including the less obvious ones. To make this happen, the group developed a new set of statistics tools.

The CHIME telescope in Penticton, B.C. (photo by Andre Renard/CHIME/FRB Collaboration)

“We can now accurately calculate the probability that two or more bursts coming from similar locations are not just a coincidence,” explains Ziggy Pleunis, a Dunlap postdoctoral fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics and corresponding author of the publication. “These new tools were essential for this study, and will also be very useful for similar research going forward.”

Thanks to radio telescopes like the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), the number of detected FRBs has grown from less than a hundred to thousands in recent years due to CHIME’s capacity to scan the entire northern sky every day.

“That’s how CHIME has an edge over other telescopes when it comes to discovering FRBs,” Pleunis says.

In their new research, the CHIME/FRB Collaboration has demonstrated that many repeating FRBs are surprisingly inactive, producing less than one burst per week of observing time.

“Many apparently one-off FRBs have simply not yet been observed long enough for a second burst from the source to be detected,” Pleunis explains.

Repeating sources of FRBs are uniquely valuable to astronomers. First, knowing that a source is a repeater creates an opportunity to observe that same source with other telescopes in more detail. Secondly, more bursts offer more information on the diversity of emission that a source can produce.

“It is exciting that CHIME/FRB saw multiple flashes from the same locations, as this allows for the detailed investigation of their nature,” says Adaeze Ibik, a PhD student in the David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Ibik has led the search for the galaxies in which some of the newly identified repeating FRBs are embedded, as reported in an accompanying research publication currently under review. “We were able to hone in on some of these repeating sources and have already identified likely associated galaxies for two of them.”

Pleunis notes that this new discovery brings astronomers closer to understanding what FRBs are – leading to even further-reaching implications.

“FRBs are likely produced by the leftovers from explosive stellar deaths.” Pleunis says. “By studying repeating FRB sources in detail, we can study the environments that these explosions occur in and better understand the end stages of a star’s life.”

“We can also learn more about the material that’s being expelled before and during the star’s demise, which is then returned to the galaxies that the FRBs live in.”

The CHIME project is co-led by the University of British Columbia, McGill University, ��߲ݴ�ý and the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, with collaborating institutions across North America.

CHIME’s research is funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation’s Leading Edge Fund, by contributions from the province of British Columbia and Quebec, and by U of T’s Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, among other sources.

Research

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Astronomers double number of known 'repeating fast radio bursts' using new data tools