Scholarship @ UWindsor

Scholarship @ UWindsor is the institutional repository of the University of Windsor (UWindsor), showcasing and preserving the UWindsor community’s scholarly outputs, as well as items from the Leddy Library’s Archives & Special Collections. Its mission is to disseminate and preserve knowledge created or housed at the University of Windsor.

Contact scholarship@uwindsor.ca for more information.

Communities in Scholarship @ UWindsor

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Conferences and Conference Proceedings 3167
Papers, presentations and abstracts of conferences held at the University of Windsor, in person and virtually.
Digitized Local Collections 1552
Digitized local items from the collections of the Leddy Library, University of Windsor, and community partners.
Faculties, Departments and Research Units 3202
Open Access Faculty publications, reports and working papers from academic departments at the University of Windsor.
Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 9579
Formal graduate original research from the University of Windsor's Masters and Doctoral programs.

Recent Submissions

Access status: Open Access ,
Social dimensions of shark–human interactions in a large remote marine protected area
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd.) Collins, Claire; Weber, Sam; Clarke, Lucy; Gollock, Matthew; Hussey, Nigel E.; Simpson, Daniel; Simpson, Tiffany; Curnick, David
The impact of shifting marine conservation policy, including marine protected area (MPA) designation, in shaping interactions between humans and imperilled species, such as sharks, remains understudied, despite its importance in determining the success of these interventions. We investigated perceptions of shark–human interactions (SHI) among the community in a remote, large-scale MPA (Ascension Island) where two recent shark attacks and perceived general increases in interactions (mostly with Galapagos and silky sharks), including depredation in recreational fisheries, have occurred. From 2023 to 2024, informal semistructured interviews (n = 34) were conducted with island residents and analysed using two theory-driven thematic frameworks to understand the level and drivers of conflict. We showed considerable social impact of SHI, including reduced human well-being and substantial lifestyle changes, with both depredation and human attacks driving dispute-level conflict. Strong social and familial connections on island resulted in narratives around attacks persisting and trauma resulting from attacks drove heightened perceived risk. Underlying conflict was further exacerbated by the perceived recurrent and unpredictable nature of negative SHI compounded with the interactions being perceived as abnormal with limited information on socio-ecological drivers. Some felt excessive chumming by historic recreational fisheries, mostly engaged in by non-residents, had also involuntarily exposed them to heightened risk by increasing SHI. There was also no consensus of what shark species were behind the increased interactions. Management resolutions were perceived as minimal but were not widely viewed as negative. However, divergent views on the use of lethal control and the need for conservation measures, such as banning shark exploitation, were evident. A key theme emerged around the need for wider community participation in the research and management processes. Policy implications. Our results highlight the critical importance of demystifying marine species, particularly in terms of understanding socio-ecological drivers of human–wildlife interactions, to combat escalation into human–wildlife conflict. This is particularly important to maintain support for large-scale MPAs and species-specific conservation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Access status: Open Access ,
Hierarchical Multi-Scale Patch Attention and Global Feature-Adaptive Fusion for Robust Occluded Face Recognition
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2025-06-24) Hejazi, Elhamsadat; Ahmadi, Majid; Ahmadi, Arash
Occluded face recognition remains a challenging problem in biometric identification, where real-world obstructions such as masks, sunglasses, scarves, and hands obscure key facial features. To address this, we introduce a dual-branch architecture that combines a Local Multi-Patch Attention Module (LMPAM) for extracting localized features with a Global Self-Attention Channel Module (GSACM) to enhance overall feature representation. The local branch utilizes Multi-Scale Patch Attention to adaptively emphasize visible facial regions, ensuring robust feature learning from unoccluded areas. Meanwhile, the global branch employs Self-Attention with Channel Recalibration to enhance discriminative features, capturing long-range dependencies while suppressing occlusion-induced noise. The two branches are integrated using Dynamic Weighted Local-Global Fusion (DW-LG), allowing the model to balance local and global information effectively. Unlike predefined occlusion-aware methods, our approach generalizes across occlusions of varying types, regions, and sizes and demonstrates robustness on multiple datasets with changes in illumination, pose, and facial expression—without requiring explicit localization. Extensive evaluations on CASIA-WebFace, LFW, and AR datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, achieving higher recognition performance under severe occlusion conditions.
Access status: Open Access ,
Cyber Threat Susceptibility Assessment for Heavy-Duty Vehicles Based on ISO/SAE 21434
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2025-03-11) Rahimi, Narges; Schuelke-Leech, Beth-Anne; Mirhassani, Mitra
TARA, which stands for Threat Analysis and Risk Assessment, serves as the foundational stage of cybersecurity implementation, particularly in the context of vehicular systems. While various considerations and risk assessment frameworks have been discussed in recent years, there is a notable lack of TARA models specifically designed for heavy-duty (HD) vehicles. The security considerations and vulnerabilities in HD vehicles differ significantly from those in light-duty (LD) vehicles, leading to different security impacts and varying attack feasibility. This makes existing models inadequate for accurately assessing risks in the context of HD vehicles. This study introduces a novel risk assessment model tailored for HD vehicles, addressing gaps in existing TARA frameworks such as EVITA, HEAVENS, and ISO/SAE 21434. The key contribution of this work lies in the customization of impact and feasibility metrics within the ISO/SAE framework to better account for the unique security challenges posed by HD vehicles. Unlike prior models, this approach adapts the impact criteria to reflect the diverse range of security concerns specific to HD vehicles, which have been inadequately addressed in existing frameworks. Additionally, through a comprehensive analysis of threat vectors and vehicle interfaces, the model refines feasibility criteria, ensuring a more accurate and context-aware assessment of security risks. By adopting these enhancements, the proposed model offers more precise risk assessments that align with HD vehicle considerations, helping to prioritize threats and make optimal decisions regarding risk treatment.
Access status: Open Access ,
Inequitable access to PrEP among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Canada: A network analysis of social indicators
(Elsevier, 2025-06) Adam, Barry D.; Monteza-Quiroz, Diego; Hart, Trevor A.; Skakoon-Sparling, Shayna; Moore, David M.; Zhang, Terri; Gormezano, Aki; Grace, Daniel
This paper examines demographic, structural, and syndemic variables to map facilitators and barriers to accessing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM) in the three largest cities in Canada, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Focusing on factors in the later stages of the PrEP cascade, this study first performed a logistic regression analysis and reports adjusted odds ratios, then entered statistically significant social indicators into a network analysis to profile the interrelated and sometimes mutually reinforcing social conditions that shape inequitable access to PrEP among Canadian GBM. Barriers to accessing a gay-friendly health care provider (HCP) and financial barriers remain primary nodes associated with inequitable PrEP access. These two nodes are, in turn, linked to other social indicators: experiencing stigma from an HCP, being less likely to be out to an HCP (most common among bisexual and queer men), and not being able to find an HCP accepting of their sexuality (most common among Indigenous, Black, and some other GBM of colour). The cost of PrEP was also a barrier, especially for less educated and un- or under-employed GBM, as well as newcomers to Canada, who more often lacked insurance for medications. These findings point toward the importance of having a primary HCP and finding an HCP who is culturally competent regarding the sexualities of gay and bisexual men, queer and trans people. These barriers may also explain other social inequities experienced by Black, Indigenous, and other GBM of colour, and by people who do not have health insurance that covers all or most of the cost of PrEP. This pattern of inequitable access to PrEP points toward the urgency of providing universal access without financial barriers (currently available in some Canadian provinces but not others) and supporting access points with a reputation for welcoming GBM in their full diversity.
Access status: Open Access ,
Breeding Partners Have Dissimilar Foraging Strategies in a Long‐Lived Arctic Seabird
(John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2025) Gousy-Leblanc, Marianne; Patterson, Allison; Gilchrist, H. Grant; Friesen, Vicki L.; Elliott, Kyle H.
For long-lived species with biparental care, coordination and compatibility in the foraging behavior of breeding mates may be crucial to successfully raise offspring. While high foraging success is clearly important to reproductive success, it might be equally important that the mate has a complementary foraging strategy. We test whether breeding partners have similar or dissimilar foraging strategies in a species where both partners share breeding responsibilities and exhibit high mate fidelity (thick-billed murre; Uria lomvia). To examine whether thick-billed murres showed complementary in foraging strategies, we attached GPS accelerometers to both partners within 40 thick-billed murre chick-rearing pairs. Individuals within a breeding pair were dissimilar in their foraging trip distance and in their number of dives during foraging trips compared to randomized pairs. Breeding partners were also more similar in wing length than randomized pairs. This result could be related to individual quality as individuals select similar sized partners or select sites that lead to similar sized partners. We conclude that foraging strategy diversity could be maintained in this population either because individuals prefer partners with foraging strategies complementary to their own, or because partners diverge in foraging strategies over multiple breeding season together.