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About MacSphere

MacSphere is McMaster University's Institutional Repository (IR). The purpose of an IR is to bring together all of a University's research under one umbrella, with an aim to preserve and provide access to that research. The research and scholarly output included in MacSphere has been selected and deposited by the individual university departments and centres on campus.

To contribute to McMaster's Institutional Repository, please sign on to MacSphere with your MAC ID.

If you have any questions, please contact the MacSphere Support Team.

Students wishing to deposit their PhD or Masters thesis, please follow the instructions outlined by the School of Graduate Studies.

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Communities in MacSphere

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Recent Submissions

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    Values and Preferences of Patients with Small Renal Masses: Integrating Evidence and Patient Perspectives
    (2026) Kandi Keleh, Maryam
    Small renal masses present patients and clinicians with preference-sensitive choices among partial nephrectomy, percutaneous thermal ablation, and active surveillance. This thesis set out to generate decision-ready evidence on both short-term burdens and longer-term oncologic outcomes for each option, and to explore how patients value the trade-offs involved. We conducted coordinated prognosis-focused systematic reviews and meta-analyses to estimate strategy-specific probabilities for peri-operative outcomes (major complications, blood loss, hospital stay, procedure time) and for five-year oncologic endpoints (overall mortality, cancer-specific mortality, local recurrence, metastasis). Methods emphasized applicability to decisions: QUIPS for risk of bias; GRADE adapted for prognosis (including a decision-threshold approach to imprecision); ICEMAN to guard against over-interpretation of subgroup signals; and improved conversions of medians/IQRs to means/SDs to avoid distorted weights in single-arm syntheses. We then built and piloted a bilingual decision aid and used structured interviews with a probability trade-off task to elicit values and risk thresholds. Across strategies, short-term burdens differed in ways patients care about, while five-year cancer-specific outcomes were generally favourable; estimates are presented as descriptive prognosis for each option rather than comparative effects, with certainty ratings that make remaining uncertainty explicit. The pilot demonstrated the feasibility and acceptability of eliciting preferences and showed meaningful variation in how patients balance avoiding procedures against small differences in oncologic risk. By integrating rigorous prognosis evidence with empirical preference elicitation, this thesis provides a transparent foundation for shared decision-making and supports conditional, values-sensitive recommendations in guidelines. It also offers practical methods, both statistical and procedural, for future decision-aid development in SRMs and similar preference-sensitive conditions.
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    Exploring Barriers Equity-Deserving Families Face in Accessing the CWELCC Child care System
    (Prepared by the McMaster Research Shop for Today's Family, 2025-12) Daniel, Eden; Mahmood, Haniyyah; Roop Kaur, Mehar; Vithanage, Randil; Van Lange, Leiann
    The Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system aims to reduce child care costs to an average of $10, though the average cost of child care in Ontario is currently $19 per day. The aim of this report is to understand the barriers that equity deserving families face in accessing CWELCC-subsidized child care in Ontario. We also wanted to identify strategies that can be implemented to advance equitable access. Today’s Family is an organization participating in CWELCC that provides licensed child care services across Hamilton, Halton, Haldimand, Norfolk, Oxford and Peel, supporting over 7,500 children annually. Despite the reduction in child care costs as a result of CWELCC, it is still relatively expensive, especially for low-income families. Today’s Family provides additional subsidies for households that cannot afford the current $22 per day fee, though barriers still exist in accessing equitable care. To answer our research question, we completed a literature review to examine barriers to entering licensed child care in Canada and promising practices that can support equitable access. Common themes across the literature were identified and integrated with information from Today’s Family’s administrative datasets, which include data on waitlists and active enrolments.
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    Tools to Support Qualitative Research on Employment Standards Act (ESA) Claims
    (Prepared by the McMaster Research Shop for Solidarity Place Worker Education Centre, 2025-12) Karaceper, Senem; Smith, Kyla; Srikanthan, Saranya; Bajwa, Ameeta; Andrawes, Vereena
    Solidarity Place Worker Education Centre (Solidarity Place) is an organization that supports people in understanding and asserting their workplace rights, particularly newcomers to Canada, young workers, and those in precarious or unstable employment. Through its day-to-day programming, the organization regularly assists individuals navigating ESA claims. Over time, Solidarity Place identified a need for more experience-based information about how workers move through the claims process. This kind of insight is critical for advocacy, funding applications, and improving educational programming. The present study was initiated in response to that need and builds on an earlier quantitative work completed by the Research Shop in Summer 2025, which examined the rate, patterns and trends in ESA claims across Ontario. The central research question guiding this project was: How do workers experience the process of filing and navigating an Employment Standards Act (ESA) claim in Ontario?
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    Behaviour Characteristics of Concrete Blocks
    (1992-07) Donald Sandys-Wunsch,
    Masonry construction has a reputation for long-term durability and relative freedom from maintenance. This is largely due to the level of quality control possible in a plant manufacturing environment. Current provisions in the material standard for concrete blocks were not felt to be comprehensive enough in describing properties which might be important for the performance of the material. Blocks from participating manufacturers were tested for: compressive strength, tensile strength, absorption, suction, permeability and shrinkage. In addition to specified standard procedures, alternate test methods for obtaining these properties were investigated. It was found that current provisions in the standard do not adequately account for permability and suction behaviour. A revision of the shrinkage requirements was recommended. Alternate procedures were recommended for some tests