Lakehead University Knowledge Commons

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Recent Submissions

A critical discourse analysis of the Instagram account of a tradwife
(2026) Manisha; Chambers, Lori; Walton, Gerald; Parker, Barbara; Brady, Miranda
This thesis investigates how Instagram tradwife content constructs love through aesthetics of submission, dependence, and self-erasure. The research explores how tradwife discourse on Instagram aestheticizes and circulates ideals of control, coercion, and emotional violence as love. Drawing on Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) and visual analysis, the study analyzes 62 reels and captions posted by white tradwife influencer Aria Lewis between January 2 and March 30, 2024. Interpretation is guided by Foucault’s theory of power, Butler’s theory of performativity, and Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, which helps trace how submission is produced and made desirable through discourse, embodiment, and visual style. Seven themes structure the findings. They are economic dependence as love, domestic servitude as devotion, illness and failure, spiritualized patriarchy and courtship, aestheticized modesty and historical femininity, scripted femininity, and tradwife discourse as harmless choice. Unequal power is softened through religious language, gratitude, nostalgia, humour, and routine-based formats that frame women’s accommodation, emotional containment, and one-income reliance as moral, safe, and chosen. Rather than showing overt conflict, the account builds a romantic common sense in which hierarchy appears as peace and protection. This creates vulnerability because women’s security depends on a husband’s kindness. The thesis locates coercive control not only in private couple dynamics but also in cultural and digital infrastructures that teach followers what love should look like. It also contributes to tradwife scholarship by focusing on a young woman in a pre-motherhood phase and the scripts she circulates to younger audiences. Keywords: Instagram, tradwife discourse, feminist critical discourse analysis, coercion, influencer culture
Petrological and geochemical constraints on the origin and nature of the Eagle’s Nest intrusion, McFaulds Lake Greenstone Belt, Ontario
(2026) Sheshnev, Vladislav; Hollings, Peter
The Eagle’s Nest intrusion is a mafic-ultramafic, blade-shaped dike that hosts the only known economically significant orthomagmatic Ni-Cu-(PGE) mineralization in the Ring of Fire region of Ontario. It is part of the Koper Lake subsuite of the more voluminous Ring of Fire Intrusive Suite (~2736–2732 Ma) and occurs within the Meso- to Neoarchean in age McFaulds Lake Greenstone Belt. The Ring of Fire Intrusive Suite is host to chromite, Fe-Ti-V, and Ni-Cu-(PGE) mineralization. Previous studies investigated the orebody and mineralization hosted by the Eagle’s Nest intrusion, with limited attention to the unmineralized parts of the system. This study applied multidisciplinary petrological and geochemical techniques to evaluate the petrogenetic controls on the formation of the Eagle’s Nest intrusion through the examination of the less mineralized portions of the intrusion and genetically related mafic dikes. The Eagle’s Nest intrusion can be subdivided into the marginal and the inner zone. The marginal zone is composed of gabbroic rocks that exhibit the most evolved mineralogical and geochemical characteristics, with evidence of intense pseudomorphic alteration that often preserves primary magmatic textures. Contacts with the host tonalite vary, generally reflecting a prolonged high magma flux, but only rarely preserving evidence of rapid cooling and chilled margins. The marginal zone gradationally transitions into the inner zones, which consists of ultramafic ortho- to mesocumulate rocks. The inner zone is characterized by coherent linear geochemical trends that reflect olivine and chromite accumulation with variable proportions of intercumulus silicate phases and interstitial sulfides, consistent with petrographic observations. Most inner zone rocks are characterized by a strong positive correlation between MgO and Cr2O3, reflecting the crystallization of olivine and chromite in cotectic proportions. However, several of the mineralized peridotite samples deviate from this trend despite containing similar proportions of these minerals. Petrographic observations and intercumulus pyroxene mineral chemistry suggest that the deviation from the cotectic trend may be caused by sulfide percolation and displacement of a Cr-rich intercumulus silicate melt, rather than the presence of less than cotectic proportions of olivine and chromite. A new parental magma composition estimate was established using olivine and chromite mineral chemistry, as well as whole rock geochemistry of ultramafic cumulate rocks interpreted to reflect cotectic proportions olivine and chromite, with variable proportions of intercumulus silicate melt. The estimate yielded a parental magma composition that contained ~15 wt% MgO and ~11 wt% FeOt, consistent with a komatiitic basalt magma. The new composition is more evolved than previous estimates, however, it is in close agreement with the composition of identified chilled margins, associated mafic dikes, and olivine. Forward thermodynamic modeling simulations of the new parental magma, reproduce the petrographically determined crystallization sequence at low pressures, suggesting that the Eagle’s Nest intrusion formed at shallow crustal levels. Whole rock geochemistry and Sm-Nd isotopes show that the Eagle’s Nest magma was derived from a depleted mantle source, above the garnet stability field, which then underwent extensive crustal contamination from multiple sources that included both the host tonalite, and older supracrustal rocks. Crustal contamination by sulfur-bearing supracrustal rocks likely contributed to attaining sulfide saturation of the magma, as evidenced by Δ³³S values consistent with mass-independent fractionation. The distinctive petrological and metallogenic characteristics of the Eagle’s Nest intrusion in the Esker Intrusive Complex may be a result of several distinct processes involving both emplacement dynamics and parental magma composition, resulting in unique metal endowments relative to other intrusions in the McFaulds Lake Greenstone Belt.
Uncertainty-guided Transformer learning for trustworthy medical image classification
(2026) Sibhai, Mohammed Maaz; Bin Ahmed, Saad; Alkhateeb, Abedalrehman; Ghaffar, Farhan; Bajwa, Garima
Reliable medical image classification is fundamental for the safe use of deep learning in clinical decision support. The state-of-the-art deep learning models, such as medical vision Transformers performs well in medical image segmentation. These models often present unreliable probability estimates and do not have built-in ways to explicitly handle uncertainty or interpretability. These issues become especially problematic when inputs are ambiguous or datasets are not uniformly distributed, which are common in real-world clinical settings. This study contributes in extending the architecture of Medical Transformer (MedFormer), a hierarchical medical vision Transformer guided by uncertainty and prototypes, to improve trustworthiness without reducing feature representation. The model uses per-token evidential uncertainty estimation via a Dirichlet approach, enabling explicit measurement of uncertainty and spatial localization. Instead of just acting as a post-hoc diagnostic tool, uncertainty actively guides feature routing and refinement during training, decreasing unreliable updates in uncertain regions. Additionally, prototype-based learning is incorporated to maintain a structured, classspecific geometry in the embedding space and support similarity-based, interpretable decisions grounded in visual patterns. The proposed model has been tested on various medical imaging types, including mammography, breast ultrasound, brain tumor MRI, and breast histopathology, providing a thorough testing across different dataset contexts. Experiments show that, while classification accuracy improvements vary across datasets, the method reliably improves calibration, reduces overconfidence, and enhances selective prediction compared to the baseline MedFormer. These results indicate that integrating uncertainty estimation and prototype-based regularisation into Transformerbased representation learning can greatly boost the reliability and explainability of medical image classifiers, supporting the development of trustworthy AI systems for clinical use Experimental results show that the proposed model improves calibration, reduces overconfidence, and enhances selective prediction across all evaluated datasets compared to the baseline MedFormer.The accuracies are reported in the selected benchmark datasets, with larger improvements in modalities with clearer visual cues and more modest changes in mammography due to inherent ambiguity. Overall, uncertainty-guided routing and prototype-based learning improve trustworthiness without sacrificing discriminative performance.
Navigating “immovable”: how neoliberalism shapes the experiences of Ph.D. students in Canadian universities
(2026) Del Paggio, Jamie; Walton, Gerald; Cobb, Cam; Pluim, Gary
This dissertation critically examines and analyzes the ways in which neoliberalism shapes Canadian universities, and, by extension, Ph.D. students with student loan debt. Neoliberalism is a politico-economic theory and ideology that heavily emphasizes free-market policies, such as deregulation and privatization, shaping the social, economic, political, and cultural terrain. Such a theory and ideology can help explain the changing politico-economic and social dynamics within Canadian universities and the experiences of such students. To explore the influence of neoliberalism in Canadian universities and doctoral students with student loan debt, a narrative inquiry approach was employed through which 16 participants were recruited for interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to understand how neoliberalism shapes their experiences in Canadian universities. A semi-structured interview guide was utilized that comprised of one interview with a potential follow-up email for each participant. To analyze the data, a narrative thematic analysis was used to identify common themes and patterns from the narratives. Three main themes emerged from the data, namely a) Class Culture, b) Managing Stressors, and c) Resistance. In addition, three sub-themes emerged, including i) Financial Struggles and ii) Bureaucracy under the theme titled, Class Culture, and iii) Contradictions under the theme titled, Resistance. The findings suggest that neoliberalism pervades Canadian universities and has some negative effects on such students. Based on the data, continued efforts to understanding the implications of neoliberalism in Canadian universities and on Ph.D. students, among other stakeholders, is important to provide further insights towards policies and practices. Additionally, resistance, even in subtle ways, is an important element to challenging the market capture of Canadian universities.
Assessing head impact reduction through under-mat systems: A fall simulation study of Ippon-Seoi-Nage and Osoto-Gari in Judoka
(2026) Henson, Kylee; Zerpa, Carlos; Prysucha, Eryk; Sanzo, Paolo; Liu, Meilan
Concussion rates are increasing in the sport of Judo. Most research on prevention focuses on how athletes respond to throws or the types of protective equipment they use to reduce impacts to the head and body. There is, however, a lack of research on the effectiveness of Judo mats in minimizing the risk of concussion during falls. In response to this research need, the proposed study explored the material properties of Judo under-mat systems by measuring their energy absorption through static testing. It also examined how different under-mat systems mitigate impact force, reduce acceleration, and lower the risk of head injuries during simulated dynamic falls in Judoka. Specifically, the study simulated scenarios when an athlete lands on the mat after being thrown with the Osoto-Gari technique and when an athlete hits the head on the mat while being thrown with the Ippon-Seoi-Nage technique. Four under-mat systems commonly seen in Judo training centers in Ontario were examined: a Judo mat with no under-mat, a pool noodle under-mat, a hockey puck under-mat, and an insulation under-mat system. Descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviations, were computed, and inferential statistical analyses were performed utilizing mixed factorial ANOVAs to address the purpose of this study. The static testing results showed that the pool noodles and hockey pucks absorbed less energy than the baseline under-mat system, but they may provide more cushioning for athletes during falls. The dynamic simulations and human participant testing revealed that the pool noodle and hockey puck under-mat systems seemed to better mitigate the risk of concussion based on measures of force, linear and angular acceleration during the simulation of Osoto-Gari and Ippon-Seoi-Nage Judo techniques. The outcome of this study provides an avenue to assess the effectiveness of Judo under-mat systems in training centers to prevent concussion risk.