Digital Commons Network^™

A Crisis Management Approach To Mission Survivability In Computational Multi-Agent Systems, Marco Carvalho, Aleksander Byrski, Marek Kisiel-Dorohinicki

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this paper we present a biologically-inspired approach for mission survivability (consideredas the capability of fulfilling a task such as computation) that allows the system to be aware ofthe possible threats or crises that may arise. This approach uses the notion of resources usedby living organisms to control their populations.We present the concept of energetic selectionin agent-based evolutionary systems as well as the means to manipulate the configuration ofthe computation according to the crises or user’s specific demands.

A Tale Of Election Day 2008: Teaching Storytelling Through Repeated Experiences, Stefan H. Krieger, Serge A. Martinez

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The article was inspired by a one-day project November 4, 2008, when we supervised a number of clinic students representing voters who had been denied the right to vote. As they represented client after client, we noticed significant improvement in their storytelling skills over a very short period, despite having little training in storytelling theory or techniques. Using our Election Day project as a starting point, the article questions the dominant pedagogical model for teaching storytelling, which focuses primarily on teaching storytelling and narrative theory. We propose a new method, based on cognitive science findings about experiential learning, that emphasizes …

Forestry-Based Livelihoods In Central Vietnam: An Examination Of The Acacia Commodity Chain: A Case From Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam, Robert Pietrzak

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Forestry-based livelihoods in remote Vietnamese communities have been influenced in recent years by forest land allocation schemes, changes to property rights, and forest management devolution initiatives. Examples include the Five Million Hectare Reforestation Program, Project 327, and official “Red Books” that grant long-term land use rights and access rights to villagers. Major challenges to forestry-based livelihoods include disputes over land tenure, conflict between different levels of government, illegal logging practices and harvesting of NTFPs and competition over land for natural versus plantation forests. As a result, forest degradation and rural poverty continue to be debilitating obstacles to development in Central …

Living On Breath And Spirit: Spiritual Intelligence And Spiritual Journey In The Christian Faith Tradition, Maria Zinsstag

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the last decade, one observes an increased interest in applied spirituality that takes into account the fact that spirituality has left the boundaries of religion. Psychologists and neuroscientists postulate a spiritual intelligence. As a scientific concept it adopts an etic perspective on spirituality. It is used in healthcare, management and education. It is interested in spirituality but not in religion. Christian spirituality on the other hand is rooted in a particular religion. Lytta Basset offers guidance for spiritual growth in the Christian faith tradition. Because spiritual growth is very personal, Basset adopts an emic perspective on spiritual experiences. This …

An Apple A Day: Exploring Food And Agricultural Knowledge And Skill Among Children In Southern Ontario, Shannon Alberta Kornelsen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

While the literature on food has somewhat addressed rudimentary food skills and their importance in the creation and maintenance of a healthy population, there remains a serious lack of research into the importance of food and agricultural skills and knowledge transference to children, especially given the rise in diet-related illnesses. This study focuses on the perceived importance of food and agricultural education initiatives, as well as the opportunities and barriers that exist within the elementary school classroom to incorporate food and agricultural topics, in the context of southern Ontario, specifically Wellington County. Drawing on Wilkin's concept of ‘food citizenship’ as …

Isolation And Characterization Of Ligands For The Goldfish Testicular Androgen Receptor From Kraft Mill Chemical Recovery Condensates, Philip David Scott

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

An investigation of cause was started in the 1990s at a bleached Kraft mill (BKM), located in Saint John NB, Canada. The 5th effect chemical recovery condensates waste stream (derived from wastewater generated during the pulping process) was identified as having the greatest potential for affecting mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus), compared to the rest of the inmill waste streams. A solid phase extraction (SPE) protocol was utilized to isolate the causative chemicals in the condensate stream. Goldfish testicular androgen receptors (ARs) were exposed to five extracts: filter paper non-polar/polar, solid phase extraction nonpolar/polar, and residual condensates. The filter paper …

Concussions In Ice Hockey: Baseline Testing, Reporting Accuracy, And Cervical Functioning, Craig J. Coghlin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study was threefold: firstly, to demonstrate the utility of the SCAT2 as both a baseline measurement and a tool to aid in the decision making process following the occurrence of a concussion; secondly, to assess the accuracy of reporting and/or relaying a diagnosis of a concussion; and finally to attempt to measure a relationship between cervical spine functioning and past concussion occurrence. Eighty hockey players were assessed for cognitive, neuropsychological, and physical measures pertaining to concussive injuries within ice hockey. The results of the study showed a marked underreporting of concussions due to either fear of …

Microporous Organic Polymers: Synthesis And Post Synthetic Modifications, Phillip Andrew Kerneghan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Microporous solids are an important class of materials that have been studied extensively. Newer to this field are Microporous Organic Polymers (MOPs) which are networks constructed from smaller organic building blocks and exhibit large surface areas, small pore sizes and low densities. It is due to these characteristics that MOPs have attracted attention because of their potential use in applications such as catalysis, chemical separations and gas storage.

In this thesis is described the synthesis of two novel MOPs, the first of which being a network based on benzenediboronic acid and triptycene building blocks linked together by boronate esters. This …

Pregnant Man?: A Conversation, Darren Rosenblum, Noa Ben-Asher, Mary Anne Case, Elizabeth F. Emens, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Vivian M. Gutierrez, Lisa C. Ikemoto, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Jacob Willig-Onwuachi, Kimberly Mutcherson, Peter Siegelman, Beth Jones

Faculty Scholarship

I'm a law professor who works on gender, sexuality, and culture in the international and comparative context. That's my head working. In "real" life, my partner, Howard, and I have been engaged in having a baby together for several years, a project that came to fruition with the birth of our daughter Melina. Of course, such a project evokes intensely complex feelings and thoughts. Beyond a simple transposition of the personal onto the political, I feel so fortunate to have engaged in myriad conversations with a variety of friends and colleagues who think much more carefully about the family and …

The Gospel According To Moses And Elijah, Roy E. Gane

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Qualitative Examination Of Sport Transitions In First Year Collegiate Female Athletes, Carolyn Mcewen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

First year student athletes transitioning from high school to university experience simultaneous transitions in athletics, academics, social lives, family structures, support systems, and peer sport groups. These changes in their personal, social and occupational lives, can impact them cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally (Taylor & Ogilvie, 1994). The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine the multi-dimensional transition experience of first-year collegiate athletes transitioning to higher level sports. A sample of eleven female varsity hockey, basketball, or volleyball athletes participated in two semi-structured interviews at beginning of the season and midseason. The first series of interviews were conducted face-to-face, with …

Interfaith Grand River: The Potential And Limits Of Dialogue To Transform Participants And Impact Communities, Jonathan Andrew Napier

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the dynamics between an interfaith dialogue group and its community. While interfaith dialogue is used for various reasons, I will study how Interfaith Grand River (IGR) deals with issues of religion in Canadian society through their monthly discussions. IGR began in September 2001 as an initiative to ensure different religious adherents in the Kitchener/Waterloo and surrounding area could meet regularly to discuss different faith topics and develop relationships. IGR serves as an illustration to compliment the theoretical works on the limits and possibilities of dialogue. Data on IGR has been derived through …

Effects Of Chlorpromazine On Feeding And Wheel Running On Rats With Acute Wheel Access, Graham Gregory Parfeniuk

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is characterized by a self-imposed starvation and is often accompanied by excessive exercise that results in severe malnutrition and sometimes death. Behavioural and pharmacological treatments of AN need to be improved. In rats, acute 3 h daytime wheel access suppresses ad lib feeding over the subsequent night relative to no wheel controls, a phenomenon that has been suggested as an animal model of AN. This acute wheel induced feeding suppression (WIFS), can be induced reliably when rats are given limited wheel access exposure during the light cycle (Lattanzio & Eikelboom, 2003). The acute WIFS is useful because …

Physiological And Toxicological Effects Of Pb Plus Cd Mixtures On Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus Mykiss) In Soft Acidic Water, Yvonne Kara

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The ability of a metal to cause toxicity in aquatic environments is highly dependant upon the water chemistry, which can influence metal bioavailability. Metal bioavailability is affected by the concentration of the metal, complexation of the metal by organic and inorganic ligands, and by the speciation of the metal. Predictive models of metal toxicity, such as the biotic ligand model (BLM) have mainly focused upon predicting the toxicity of individual metals rather than the toxicity of metals in mixtures, which are more commonly found in contaminated waters. Two metals that are commonly found together are Pb and Cd which can …

Paleolimnological Reconstruction Of Hydrologic Change In The Slave River And Great Slave Lake During The Past Millennium, Matthew Ennis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Slave River Delta (SRD), NWT, represents a pivotal node in the upper Mackenzie Basin watershed and is a productive northern wetland landscape with a rich natural and cultural heritage. Concerns over environmental consequences of natural and anthropogenic-driven decline in river discharge as well as climate variability have prompted hydroecological sstudies to improve understanding of how this ecosystem functions over time and space. However, long-term natural hydrological variability of the Slave River system is not well documented and needs to be further developed. In order to provide a temperal context for understanding and evaluating the impacts of climate variability and …

A Qualitative Exploration Of The Needs Of (Pre)Parenting: Women Parenting With Women In Southern Ontario, Krystal Lee Kellington

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Over the years research has examined various aspects of Women Parenting with Women (WPW) and their families. The focus of the research on these families has to an extent, been influenced by the social and political debates throughout the years that saw these families struggle through one challenge to the next. Through these challenges, research has examined the claims and accusations for and against these families, generating information on the mental health and suitability of same-sex parents, the well-being of their children, and how these families function without a nuclear family structure. As the social and political climate continues to …

A Time Series Analysis: Exploring The Link Between Human Activity And Blood Glucose Fluctuation, Eric A. Sadowski

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this thesis, time series models are developed to explore the correlates of blood glucose (BG) fluctuation of diabetic patients. In particular, it is investigated whether certain human activities and lifestyle events (e.g. food and medication consumption, physical activity, travel and social interaction) influence BG, and if so, how. A unique dataset is utilized consisting of 40 diabetic patients who participated in a 3-day study involving continuous monitoring of blood glucose (BG) at five minute intervals, combined with measures for sugar; carbohydrate; calorie and insulin intake; physical activity; distance from home; time spent traveling via public transit and private automobile; …

Transepithelial D-Glucose And D-Fructose Transport Across Lobster Intestine, Ijeoma Ebelechukwu Obi

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The mechanisms of transepithelial absorption of dietary D-glucose and D-fructose in the American lobster, Homarus americanus, were investigated in this study in order to determine whether sugar transport proteins have been conserved throughout evolution. Whole lobster intestine was isolated and mounted in a perfusion chamber to determine transepithelial mucosal to serosal (MS) and serosal to mucosal (SM) mechanisms of ³H-D-glucose and ³H-D-fructose transport across the intestine. Unidirectional MS and SM fluxes were measured by adding variable concentrations of ³H-D-glucose and ³H-D-fructose (2.5 to 50uM) to either the perfusate or the bath respectively and sampling the …

Finite Element Analysis Of A Nose Gear During Landing, Thoai D. Nguyen

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nose gear failure is a high concern in the aviation industries. According to the Federal Aviation Administration reports, 55% of aircraft failures occur during takeoff and landing while 45% of failures occur during flight. The objective of this thesis is to determine the stress behavior and the displacement of a nose gear of an aircraft during landing using structural finite element analysis. The nose gear was first modeled using computer-aided design software and then imported into finite element software. The external forces were determined analytically and the interactions between components were carefully modeled using contact analysis. The tire was modeled …

What The Body Stories Of Girls Tell Us About Autonomy And Connection During Adolescence, Colleen Mcmillan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative study aimed to understand what the body stories of girls who exhibit signs of disordered eating reveal about the concepts of autonomy and connection during early adolescence. The study was guided by the research question “Are the symptoms of disordered eating one of the ways the female body “talks” about the experience of disconnection during adolescence?” Informed by Relational Cultural Theory, data was collected from two focus groups of 16 adolescent girls aged 11 to 14 years. Each group met six times over a four month period. Because many aspects of lived experience cannot be expressed verbally, the …

The Thompsons’ Town: Family, Industry, And Material Culture In Indiana, Ontario, 1830–1900, Laura Kathleen Quirk

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study considers the industrial development and subsequent decline of the town of Indiana, Ontario, during the years 1830–1900, a period of intense socioeconomic change and population mobility. This dissertation applies interdisciplinary frameworks, especially those derived from archaeological inquiry, in order to assess the documentary evidence and also the material culture of nineteenth-century Indiana, in the interests of understanding both the historic process of rural industrialization by means of a case study and also the elusive processes of social and familial interaction in the Ontario towns caught up by the swirl of socioeconomic change during this period. How, and why, …

Exploring The Concepts Of Partnership And Their Implications For Hiv And Aids Prevention And Care In Two Ghanian Communities, Jonathan Lomotey

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study was an exploration of the concepts of partnership in the La and Nsawam-Adoajiri communities of Ghana and their implications for HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support. Using qualitative data gathering methods, this study sought to discover what is referred to as a partnership, how it is initiated, why it is initiated, the meanings ascribed to it, and its structure and processes in either community. The study further sought to understand how the concepts of partnership in each community could facilitate the development of an effective community-based initiative for HIV and AIDS prevention and care in either …

An Exploration Of American And Canadian Tourist Destination Images Of Cuba, Culum Richard Canally

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Tourism in Cuba is thriving. Since 1991 the island has quickly become one of the top Caribbean tourist destinations. As a result tourism researchers have recently turned their attention towards investigating many facets of tourism on the island. However one omission in this growing corpus of research is the effect that politics has had on Cuba’s tourist destination image (TDI). In this study I explore how politics influences the evolution of tourist destination image. I also demonstrate that a critical constructivist paradigm can be used as an alternative to traditional positivist/postpositivist ways of researching tourist destination image. Finally I utilize …

Self-Knowledge And Rationality, Stephen Blackwood

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Several basic asymmetries are normally thought to exist between first- and third-person present-tense ascriptions of mental states. First of all, when a speaker ascribes, for instance, a belief that p to another, she must do so on the evidence provided by the utterances and actions of the other. However, it at least appears that typically she need not do so when ascribing a belief to herself. In other words, there is an immediacy to a self-ascription of a belief (that is, an utterance of the form ‘I believe that p’) that thirdperson ascriptions (‘He believes that p’) lack. …

It’S Like Jumping Out Of A Plane Without A Parachute: Incarceration And Reintegration Experiences Of Provincially Sentenced Women In Atlantic Canada, Jennifer Robena Bernier

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Women are now the fastest rising prison population in the world (Balfour & Comack, 2006). As more and more women are being incarcerated, it becomes increasingly important to understand how they experience imprisonment, as well as their transition back to the community. Scholarly work on women’s incarceration and reintegration is limited. In Canada, the majority of research on reintegration, and otherwise, has focused on the federal correctional system. The goal of this study was to gain a greater understanding of the incarceration and reintegration experiences of women in the provincial correctional system. In order to achieve this goal, I conducted …

The “Budget Fallacy”: Sources Of Accuracy And Bias In Personal Spending Predictions, Johanna Peetz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In everyday life, people frequently estimate their spending for projects and time periods. In the present research, I extend previous work on self prediction into the realm of personal financial behavior. Seven studies examine people’s ability to predict their future personal spending and processes underlying spending predictions. I found that people tended to underestimate their future personal spending when predicting next week's spending (Studies 1-3), predicting that they would spend substantially less money during an upcoming week than they actually did. On average, participants underestimated their weekly expenditures by about 27&. However, spending predictions for concrete events appeared to be …

Witnessing From A Distance: Postwar Literary Representations Of The Holocaust, Miriam Carolin Raethel

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis concerns itself with the possibilities and limits of witnessing the Holocaust from a distance. It analyzes the ways in which the notion of distance—temporal, geographical, linguistic, and aesthetic—influences, shapes, and alters the act of bearing witness to a remote historical event, which, because of its enormity, seemingly defies the act ofwitnessing and thus ofrepresentation. This study investigates the long-lasting impact ofthe Holocaust on subsequent generations, particularly on third-generation descendants ofvictims and perpetrators, and explores how the traumatic legacy ofthe Holocaust locates new forms of representation within the context ofpostmodernism, which, because of its emphasis on fragmentation, on the …

Young, Working And Black: A Study Of Empowerment, Oppression, Race And Gender In Community Settings, Julian Hasford

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between race, gender, and power in community settings. Taking the experiences of young Black Canadians within the workplace as an exemplar, the study sought to answer three main research questions: (a) How does oppression influence the psychological empowerment of Black youth and young adults in the workplace? (b) How do workplace characteristics promote Black youths’ and young adults’ psychological empowerment?, and (c) How does gender influence Black youths’ and young adults’ experiences of oppression and empowerment in the workplace? To answer these questions I conducted narrative interviews with 24 Black …

Littoral Cells, Longshore Transport And Wave Climate: An Examination Of Littoral Transport Along The Western Shore Of Prince Edward County, Ontario, Jayson A. Childs

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study discusses the wave climate and potential littoral transport along the western shore of Prince Edward County approximately two hours east of Toronto along the northern shoreline of Lake Ontario. The limestone headlands and barrier bars of the western coast are exposed toward a southwesterly fetch of approximately 200 km that can produce large offshore wave heights of 2–5 m. The wave model STWAVE was used to transform a standard set of wave conditions developed from recent hindcast data to examine fair weather, storm and extreme conditions for five directions between south and west-northwest along the shore. The resulting …

Dhamma Education: The Transmission And Reconfiguration Of The Sri Lankan Buddhist Tradition In Toronto, Deba Mitra Bhikkhu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research documents the transition of a religious tradition from a foreign-born generation to a new generation who call Canada home. It examines how first-generation Sri Lankan Buddhists in Toronto transmit their Buddhist tradition to their Canadian children, how the latter receive what is passed on to them, and what happens within the tradition through the process of transmission and reception. These issues are of paramount concern not only for Buddhist communities in North America but also for other immigrant and refugee groups undergoing the process of resettlement. Working with two Sri Lankan temples in Toronto, the Toronto Mahavihara and …