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    Navigating vulnerability and viability with an intersectional lens: the case of small-scale fisheries of Chiloé, Chile
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-10-27) Arriagada Oyarzún, Nayadeth
    This dissertation explores the multidimensional gendered dimensions of women’s and men’s vulnerability-viability experiences in small-scale fisheries (SSF) in Chiloé, Chile, through three specific objectives: 1) to critically assess how gender is conceptualized within the vulnerability literature on SSF, and to develop a more nuanced framework for understanding multidimensional vulnerability, 2) to empirically analyze the multidimensional gendered experiences of vulnerability among women and men in SSF in Chiloé, Chile, and 3) to explore agency and empowerment dynamics- both individual and collective- towards viability among women SSF in Chiloé, Chile. To address these objectives, this dissertation combines a systematic scoping review with mixed-methods and qualitative empirical research. First, a systematic scoping review critically examined how gender has been conceptualized within the vulnerability literature on SSF and informed the development of a multidimensional framework for gendered vulnerability. Second, surveys (n=133), semi-structured interviews (n=33), and two participatory workshops were used to examine the multidimensional experiences of vulnerability among women and men involved in SSF in Chiloé. Finally, qualitative research with women in SSF explored the individual and collective processes of agency and empowerment that contribute to viability. The scoping review demonstrates that research on gender and vulnerability in SSF has expanded primarily during the last decade, with most studies focusing on the Global South and on pre- and post-harvest activities. While multiple theoretical approaches have been used to conceptualize vulnerability—including social-ecological systems, resilience thinking, political ecology, livelihoods, well-being, and poverty-marginalization perspectives—only a limited number of studies engage in a comprehensive gender analysis. Subjective dimensions of vulnerability, intersectionality, power relations, agency, and gender norms remain largely overlooked. In response, this dissertation proposes a multidimensional framework that conceptualizes vulnerability as the interaction of material, relational, and subjective dimensions across well-being, resilience, and access to capital. Drawing on Feminist Political Ecology, the framework further recognizes vulnerability as dynamic, intersectional, and embedded in everyday identities, aspirations, emotional experiences, and power relations while simultaneously acknowledging people's capacity for agency. Applying this framework to the empirical case of Chiloé demonstrates that women and men experience vulnerability in fundamentally different ways despite being exposed to many of the same environmental and socioeconomic stressors. Materially, men report greater negative impacts from ecological stressors, whereas women experience higher levels of food insecurity and health-related challenges. Women also display higher levels of adaptive capacity by diversifying livelihoods and actively seeking institutional support to respond to financial and personal difficulties. Relational dimensions reveal even more pronounced differences, as women's well-being is deeply shaped by caregiving responsibilities, household labor, and gendered divisions of work, while men rarely identify these responsibilities as sources of vulnerability. At the subjective level, women's experiences of vulnerability are closely intertwined with health, caregiving, grief, aspirations, and identities as both fishers and mothers. These subjective experiences influence how women navigate challenges, seek recognition, negotiate with institutions, and envision their futures. Together, these findings demonstrate that subjective dimensions constitute a critical component of gendered vulnerability in SSF yet remain insufficiently incorporated into dominant vulnerability frameworks. The dissertation further explores how women navigate vulnerability through processes of agency and empowerment. Findings indicate that women actively pursue livelihoods in SSF as alternatives to more limited employment opportunities while simultaneously accommodating caregiving responsibilities. Individual agency is expressed through occupational choices, livelihood diversification, and continuous negotiation with fisheries authorities, municipal institutions, and community organizations. Collective organization emerges as an especially significant source of empowerment. Women's organizations have generated both material outcomes—including shared productive assets and certifications—and non-material outcomes, such as expanded leadership opportunities, increased recognition, knowledge exchange, and stronger political participation. Most notably, participants identified their contribution to the enactment of Chile's Gender Equity Law in Fisheries (Law 21.370) as a major collective achievement. These findings suggest that collective empowerment reinforces individual agency, particularly through subjective dimensions of empowerment, strengthening women's capacity to influence decision-making and pursue more viable livelihoods. This dissertation makes theoretical, empirical, and practical contributions to gender scholarship in SSF by demonstrating that vulnerability cannot be fully understood through material indicators alone. Instead, vulnerability emerges through the interaction of material, relational, and subjective dimensions that are shaped by gendered identities, responsibilities, power relations, and opportunities for agency. By integrating Feminist Political Ecology with the recent vulnerability-to-viability transitions research and emerging literature, this research proposes a multidimensional framework that offers a more comprehensive understanding of vulnerability while highlighting agency and empowerment as central processes in pathways toward viability. These findings contribute both theoretically and empirically to ongoing debates on gender, vulnerability, and well-being in small-scale fisheries and provide insights for policies and governance initiatives seeking to foster more equitable and viable fishing communities.
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    Hair Cortisol and Psychopathology Among Children with a Chronic Physical Illness
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-10-27) Littler, Emma
    Chronic physical illnesses (CPIs), such as asthma, diabetes, and epilepsy, affect approximately 30-50% of children. Living with and managing a CPI in childhood may be a significant source of chronic stress. As a result, children with a CPI are at a greater risk of developing psychopathology (i.e., multimorbidity). Multimorbidity negatively impacts children’s physical and psychosocial health, including child health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Thus, understanding the mechanisms underlying child multimorbidity is a critical public health concern. Chronic stress exposure can lead to dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which may be implicated in the development of psychopathology. Over the past two decades, hair cortisol concentration (HCC) has been identified as a viable biomarker for chronic HPA-axis dysregulation in children. However, evidence linking HCC to psychopathology in children is mixed, and very few studies have examined these associations in children with a CPI. Existing studies in children with a CPI are often small, cross-sectional, and illness-specific. To address these knowledge gaps, this dissertation examined the longitudinal associations between HCC and psychopathology in a large sample of children with diverse CPIs. Specifically, the objectives were to: 1) identify distinct trajectories of HCC among children with a CPI; 2) identify predictors of HCC trajectory group membership; 3) examine associations between HCC trajectories and psychopathology; 4) examine the between- and within-dyad effects of parent distress on child psychopathology; 5) explore child HCC trajectory as a moderator of the associations between parent distress and child psychopathology; 6) examine associations between HCC trajectories and HRQoL; and 7) explore psychopathology as a mediator of the associations between HCC trajectories and HRQoL. The first study used latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to identify three distinct trajectories of HCC in children with a CPI: Hypersecretion (68%), Hyposecretion (8.6%), and Hyper-to-Hypo (23.4%). Significant predictors of HCC trajectory group membership were child sex, child age, parent age, and time since CPI diagnosis. Linear mixed-effects (LME) models examined associations between HCC trajectories and psychopathology, and found that children in the Hyper-to-Hypo class had fewer internalizing and externalizing psychopathology symptoms compared to the Hypersecretion class. There was no difference in psychopathology symptoms between the Hyposecretion and Hypersecretion classes. These findings suggest that living with a CPI during childhood may be a significant chronic stressor, and HPA-axis dysregulation may be an important mechanism linking childhood CPI to psychopathology. The second study used LME models to examine the between- and within-dyad effects of parent distress on child psychopathology and explore child HCC trajectory as a moderator of these associations. Higher average parent internalizing symptoms were associated with greater child internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Fluctuations in parent internalizing symptoms only predicted greater child internalizing, not externalizing, symptoms. Higher average levels and fluctuations in parenting stress were associated with greater child externalizing, but not internalizing, symptoms. Child HCC trajectory was identified as a moderating factor, such that the combination of high average parent internalizing symptoms or parenting stress and cortisol hypersecretion predicted greater child internalizing symptoms. These findings suggest that parent and child mental health are strongly linked in families of a child with a CPI, and interventions targeting parent distress may have beneficial downstream effects on child mental health. Moreover, HPA-axis dysregulation in children with a CPI may function as a vulnerability factor that heightens risk for psychopathology when exposed to parent distress. The third study used latent growth curve models (LGCMs) to examine associations between HCC trajectories and HRQoL over time, and explore psychopathology as a mediator of these associations. Children in the Hyper-to-Hypo class had higher HRQoL in the domains of parents and autonomy, social support and peers, and school environment compared to the Hypersecretion class, and lower psychopathology was identified as a significant mediating mechanism. Children in the Hyposecretion class had higher HRQoL in the physical well-being domain compared to the Hypersecretion class, an effect not mediated by psychopathology. The HCC trajectories were not associated with change in HRQoL over time, but increases in psychopathology were associated with decreases in HRQoL. These findings suggest that HPA- axis dysregulation and psychopathology may be important mechanisms linking childhood CPI to poor HRQoL, and interventions for reducing stress and psychopathology may lead to improvements in HRQoL in this population. This dissertation fills critical knowledge gaps and contributes to a greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying child multimorbidity. Taken together, these findings can be summarized into three key themes: (1) living with a CPI during childhood may be a significant chronic stressor, and HPA-axis dysregulation may be an important mechanism linking childhood CPI to negative health outcomes; (2) HPA-axis functioning in children with a CPI is heterogenous, and approaches that identify this heterogeneity may be important for understanding health outcomes and informing intervention strategies; and (3) non-categorical, integrated physical-mental, and family-centered care approaches in pediatric healthcare are needed to improve health outcomes for children with a CPI and their families.
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    Efficient index-based processing of join queries in DHTs
    (University of Waterloo, 2008-07-22) Wang, Qiang; Akbarinia, Reza; Ozsu, Tamer
    Massively distributed applications require the integration of heterogeneous data from multiple sources. Peer-to-peer (P2P) is one possible network model for these distributed applications and among P2P architectures, distributed has table (DHT) is well known for its routing performance guarantees. Under a general distributed relational data model, join query operator, an essential component to integrate data from multiple relational tables in centralized DBMS, can be realized over DHT to support data integration tasks in P2P networks. In this paper, we propose an efficient and adaptive index-based join query operator over DHTs. With attribute-value storage approach, we build decentralized join indices over DHT, facilitating join query processing with reduced bandwidth consumption. Join index information regarding each join query operator is maintained across multiple indexing peers via an adaptive scheme based on peer capacities, alleviating load-balancing problem. Moreover, we develop an algorithm to access distributed indices with proven performance guarantees. Based on the join indices, a semi-join-alike approach is exploited to handle join query processing at indexing peers concurrently, effectively realizing intra-operator parallelism and decreasing query processing latency. Through theoretic analysis and extensive simulation, we demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.
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    Investigation of the Effect of SOD1 Inhibition on the FMD-2Br-DAB Activity in Pancreatic Cancer Cells
    (University of Waterloo, 2026-10-27) Weerasinghe Mudiyanselage, Nimesha Nadeeshani
    Femtomedicine (FMD) compounds are a class of non-platinum halogenated molecules that have previously demonstrated selective anticancer activity. Among them, FMD-2Br-DAB has been proposed to act through a halogen reaction cycle mechanism, in which hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) initiates reactive halogen species (RHS) generation and nitric oxide (NO) terminates the cycle, together with a dissociative electron transfer (DET) mechanism. Superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) converts superoxide anions (O₂•⁻) into H₂O₂ and thereby contributes to intracellular H₂O₂ availability. However, whether SOD1-associated H₂O₂ availability influences the anticancer activity of FMD-2Br-DAB through the proposed reactive halogen cycle has not been experimentally established. To address this, PANC-1 and BXPC-3 pancreatic cancer cells and GM05757 normal fibroblasts were treated with FMD-2Br-DAB alone and in combination with the SOD1 inhibitors DETC and LCS-1. Cell viability was assessed using the MTT assay, intracellular H₂O₂ was measured, and UV–Vis spectroscopy was used to examine spectral changes in mixtures of FMD-2Br-DAB with each inhibitor. FMD-2Br-DAB reduced cell viability in a concentration-dependent manner. BXPC-3 cells showed selective sensitivity relative to GM05757 fibroblasts, whereas PANC-1 cells did not. The SOD1 inhibitors were associated with changes in FMD-2Br-DAB cytotoxicity, with different responses for DETC and LCS-1. FMD–LCS-1 combinations consistently produced viability above the expected additive response, consistent with an H₂O₂-dependent contribution. In contrast, DETC lowered intracellular H₂O₂ relative to FMD alone in all three cell lines, yet FMD–DETC combinations were less viable than FMD alone in every condition tested, and viability was at or only modestly above the expected additive response in five of six conditions (below it in PANC-1 at 100 μM FMD). The reduced H₂O₂-associated fluorescence did not correspond to the predicted reduction in FMD cytotoxicity following DETC treatment. This unexpected response suggests that additional mechanisms may contribute to the effects of the FMD–DETC combination. UV–Vis spectroscopy showed pronounced spectral changes in the FMD–DETC combination, consistent with a possible chemical interaction between the compounds. These findings are consistent with a possible contribution of H₂O₂-dependent mechanisms to FMD 2Br-DAB activity but do not directly establish the proposed halogen reaction cycle. The FMD–DETC response is consistent with the proposed DET mechanism, with DETC acting as an electron donor, whereas the FMD–LCS-1 response is consistent with the proposed mechanism of H₂O₂-regulated halogen reaction cycles. The reduced selectivity in PANC-1 relative to BXPC-3 cells suggests that H₂O₂ availability alone does not fully explain the differences between the two pancreatic cancer cell lines.
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    Adaptive two-dimensional string matching for protein contact maps
    (University of Waterloo, 2008-07-17) Fraser, Robert; Lopez-Ortiz, Alejandro
    Contact maps are two dimensional abstract representations of protein structures. One of the uses of contact maps is for the identification of patterns which correspond to some known configuration of protein secondary structures. In the past, searching for these patterns has generally used a naive sliding window approach which is time consuming. We study several approaches that have been used for two dimensional string matching to accelerate the time requirements of these searching operations, and demonstrate experimentally the efficacy of these algorithms in our domain. Finally, we present an adaptive analysis of the problem, by restricting the search to only those regions of secondary structure that we are interested in. The same searches as performed previously are executed again using the adaptive approach, and the improvements make the search tractable.