Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing Stormwater Management Pond Water Quality, Function, And The Potential Biotic Effects To Receiving Waters, Mitchell Elstone

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The use of stormwater management ponds (SWMPs) has been increasing over the past five decades. However, an in-depth understanding of the daily performance of SWMPs and functionality during cold periods is limited. This is in part because mandated monitoring is relatively infrequent, and the assumption that SWMPs are inactive between storm events and during the winter. The goals of this research were to better understand daily stormwater (SW) characteristics, the performance of SWMPs based on current forms of evaluation and assess the potential for SWMP effluent to impact downstream biota. Influent and effluent samples from two SWMPs were collected daily …

Troglodyke's Delight: A Deep Listening Of Pauline Olivero's Troglodyte's Delight, Calum Robertson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Pauline Oliveros, renowned lesbian composer, left a legacy of experimental music and groundbreaking ideas about music and sound, both as maker and listener. She is best known for her concept of Deep Listening, the active engagement of listening to sound and being open to all possibilities, being receptive to the resonant currents emanating from the sounds, to go beyond hearing and to listen, to Deeply Listen, to the sounds, to experience fully those sounds. Deep Listening was inspired by an experience Oliveros had in a cistern in 1988, where beneath the earth she truly experienced listening and the sounds present …

Advancing Machine Learning Interpretability: Lime Applications To Temporal Data And A Novel Method Of Counterfactual Generation, Shou Nakano, Yang Liu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As machine learning has advanced significantly over the past decade, predictive models have achieved substantial success across various domains. However, they often lack transparency in their decision-making processes. This opacity presents risks, particularly in sectors like healthcare and finance, where transparency is crucial. To address these challenges, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) has risen in importance. Techniques such as LIME (Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations) have been developed, utilizing simpler alternative models like linear regression or tree-based models to explain decisions for specific instances.

This thesis initially concentrates on the application of LIME to three global annual datasets, specifically within the relatively …

Making The Pluriverse Visible: World-Making On The Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula, Lauren Judge

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation argues that visual artists who live and work on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula, in Ontario, Canada, are co-creating artworks with non-humans, which is evidence of more-than-human world-making. Such co-creative experiences are the result of, and catalysts for the kinds of enchantment our human worlds need to form meaningful and holistic connections with non-humans, effectively creating a more inclusive pluriverse. After reviewing interdisciplinary literature in posthuman studies, creative geography, arts-based practices, environmental humanities, Indigenous knowledges, and political ontology, I designed my research to include a combination of qualitative methodologies and methods, including autoethnography and research-creation, to investigate fourteen visual …

Shifting Blame And Gendered Differences: A News Media Study Of The Characterization Of Police Sexual Violence, Brittany Nieman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis offers a critical analysis of media representations of police sexual violence cases in Canada. This paper looks to fill the gap on media representations of police sexual violence cases and to contribute to long standing literature on gendered issues in policing. Symbolic interactionism, framing theory, and critical feminist ideologies make up the theoretical background for this work. Using Altheide and Schneiders (2012) Qualitative Document Analysis Process, a media analysis was conducted on 104 Canadian news articles revolving around police sexual violence cases occurring on Canadian policing services. This study primarily revealed a dichotomy in representations of the complainant …

Examining Seasonality Of Zooplankton Communities And Water Quality In Yellowknife Area Lakes, Northwest Territories, Nicole Andreola

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Frame Lake, located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, is one of the city's main attractions. Unfortunately, urbanization and eutrophication have led to a decline in water quality in the lake. Eutrophication has caused a buildup of organic matter in sediments on the bottom of the lake, which can cause a high oxygen demand when processed by aerobic bacteria. Dissolved oxygen levels are high during the summer, but ice shields the lake from gas exchange with the atmosphere, leading to winter anoxia. This oxygen depletion makes it impossible for sensitive aquatic life, such as fish, to survive in the lake over the …

Language Acquisition, Mental Health, And Acculturation Among Migrants In Canada, Ali Jasemi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the integration of first-generation migrants in Canada, focusing on the constructs of acculturation, language proficiency, and mental health. With nearly a quarter of Canada's population comprising migrants (Statistics Canada, 2022), understanding their adjustment is critical. Acculturation, language proficiency, and mental health can all have an impact on the success of migrants in their new country (Balidemaj et al. 2019; Brance et al. 2023; Iversen et al. 2014; Rousseau et al. 2019; Rashtchi et al. 2012; Salami et al. 2019). There are a limited number of studies examining these variables in relation to certain migrant groups, such as …

Understanding Health And Well-Being Outcomes Associated With Protected Coastal Ecosystems: A Fundy National Park Case Study., Mhairi K. Chandler

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the mental health and well-being of Canadians, prompting many to turn to nature for consolation and social interaction. However, there is a lack of evidence linking these outcomes specifically to coastal areas. To address this gap, we conducted a self-reported survey at Fundy National Park, New Brunswick, Canada, in summer 2022. Over 400 visitors participated, revealing nature enjoyment, physical health, and mental well-being as primary motivators for park visitation. Notably, mental well-being showed significant differences across gender, sexual identity, and ethnicity, with males, straight individuals, and others exhibiting distinct preferences compared to females, 2SLGBTQIA+ …

Characterizing The Targeting Pathway Of Chloroplast Outer Membrane Protein Oep18 In Arabidopsis Thaliana And Other Targeting Signals Utilized By Outer Envelope Membrane Proteins, Ceaira Hiemstra

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Approximately 95% of chloroplast proteins are encoded by nuclear DNA and are post-translationally targeted to the chloroplast. Over half of the 138 known or predicted chloroplast outer membrane (OM) proteins are predicted to utilize four non-canonical targeting pathways. The first two pathways are characterized by containing a single α-helical transmembrane domain (TMD) within the first or last 50 amino acids (AAs), the third pathway is utilized by β-barrels, and the last requires an N-terminal cleavable transit peptide (TP). Recently, a fifth novel pathway called Toc159-like (TOC159L) has been characterized by the presence of a C-terminal reverse TP in Toc159. Subsequent …

Indigenous Wholistic Abolition: Visioning Indigenous Queer, Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Futures, Giselle Dias

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As a queer Métis, activist and organizer in the field of prisoners’ rights, penal abolition, and transformative justice, I have been interested in learning about how Indigenous peoples’ relationship with Aki (Land) grounds abolition theory and guides the ways that I and other Indigenous abolitionists engage in abolition. As part of this process, I wanted to speak to other Indigenous queer, Two-Spirit, trans, non-binary, and/or Indigiqueer (Q2STNBI) people about their visions of abolition and abolitionist futures through a relational Land-based lens. Therefore, I used a methodology that centres Métis worldviews and community organizing and is grounded in the ethics of …

Integrating Biodiversity Protection And Climate Mitigation In Nature-Based Climate Solutions: An Indicator Analysis, Tatyana Feiner

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Climate change and biodiversity loss have been recognized as complex, interconnected issues that require synergistic and mutually reinforcing policy solutions. Given the ambitious commitments by the Canadian government to abate the two “wicked problems”, this study investigates whether the government has constructed a policy framework that synthesizes climate and biodiversity concerns through policy integration and mainstreaming processes. Through a semi-systematic and comprehensive content analysis approach, this study assesses the degree to which biodiversity protection and climate mitigation have been effectively mainstreamed into federal policies, programs, and instruments. Specifically, the study constructs an evaluative framework based on established “best practices” of …

Young Adult Stepchildren's Lived Experience Of Blended Family Adjustment During Adolescence: A Retrospective Descriptive Phenomenological Analysis, Azadeh Razbani-Tehrani

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract

Blended family adjustment is a common experience for many children and adolescents, given the commonality of blended families in our current times (Arat & Poortman, 2023; Ganong et al., 2020; George & Fernandez, 2014). The 2021 Canadian Census data showed that there were more than 500,000 blended families in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2022). Stepchildren in blended families, specifically adolescents, are members of the blended family most adversely impacted by blended family formation (Papernow, 2013; 2018). Despite the volume of valuable empirical literature on blended families and stepchildren (Ganong and Coleman, 2017; Hoffmann, 2002, 2006; Jeynes, 2007; Tillman, 2007; van …

Moving Forward While Looking Back: How Expectations Of Future Success Are Linked With Past Experiences, Claire Jordan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Following a disappointing past event, how do people maintain motivation and hope for the future? Temporal Self-Appraisal Theory posits that in the face of past disappointing events, people will perceive these events as feeling far away in time to protect the current self-concept. In line with this theory, we reasoned that people who perceive past failures as further away and thus less relevant may maintain a more positive outlook. In Study 1 (N = 410), students reported their final grade in a previous psychology course, predicted their final grade in an ongoing course, and rated their hope and …

Developing A Transformer-Based Sleep Apnea Diagnostic Model: Addressing Multi-Dimensional Time Series Challenges In Polysomnography, Laith Adi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Sleep apnea is a prevalent and potentially serious sleep disorder, affecting 1% to 6% of children and adolescents [1]. Early and accurate diagnosis is critical, as untreated sleep apnea can lead to severe health complications, including cardiovascular problems and developmental issues. Traditional diagnostic methods often rely on manual analysis of polysomnography (PSG) data, which can be time-consuming and require specialized expertise. This thesis explores the use of Fourier transforms, differencing, and other phys- iological signal processing techniques to develop a transformer-based diagnostic model from scratch, utilizing multi-dimensional time series data from PSG. Our research distin- guishes itself by not only …

The Atiyah-Hitchin-Singer Theorem And An 8-Dimensional Generalization, Timothy Ponepal

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Atiyah-Hitchin-Singer theorem states that the twistor almost complex structure on a certain S² bundle over an oriented Riemannian 4-manifold (M, g) is integrable if and only if the Weyl curvature tensor of g is self-dual. These ideas were developed by Roger Penrose connecting 4-dimensional Riemannian geometry with complex geometry. We present a new approach to the Atiyah-Hitchin-Singer theorem using horizontal lifts and their respective flows, cross products and the quaternions to show that the Nijenhuis tensor vanishes if and only if the Weyl curvature tensor of g is anti-self-dual. An eight dimensional generalization is presented when the …

Incorporating Effects-Based Approaches Into Environmental Impact Assessment To Improve Post-Development Monitoring, Carolyn J M Brown

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Over the last 50 years, improvements in design of industrial facilities have significantly reduced environmental impacts. But impacts still occur and monitoring programs are the main mechanism to inform when modification/implementation of mitigation is needed. Informed decisions require adequate baseline (pre-development) data to predict impacts based on the development’s design and to understand when the post-development environment has changed. An adaptive monitoring plan provides an effective way to evaluate monitoring results and allow for proactive responses to environmental change before impacts become difficult or challenging to reverse. Unfortunately, baseline data gathered during an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is often inadequate …

Impacts Of Wildfire On Subcanopy Energy Balance, Thermal Regime, And Permafrost Stability In Peat Plateaus At Scotty Creek, Canada, Maude Auclair

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The stability of permafrost in peatland-dominated regions of northwestern Canada is compromised by ongoing climate warming and increased wildfire activity. This study examines an 8-year record of changes to the surface and subsurface properties of a peat plateau following a low-severity wildfire that occurred in 2014 in a region of thawing, discontinuous permafrost. This is accomplished by comparing the burned portion of a peat plateau to two unburned control sites, one of which is the unburned portion of the same plateau that was affected by the fire. Net radiation was not significantly different one year following the wildfire but became …

“You Do Not Need To Be Skinny Or Look Like An Athlete To Still Live A Healthy Life”: Exploring Anti-Fat Bias Within Health-Related Undergraduate Programs, Maddie Katz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Anti-fat bias negatively influences well-being, particularly for fat people. This bias is present in healthcare and fitness contexts, where emphasis on bodies and weight are salient. Healthcare and fitness professionals often re-learn anti-fat bias in their education through a weight-centric paradigm of health, which frames weight as a primary indicator of health (good or bad), an individual responsibility, and a direct reflection of individual behavioural choices (i.e., diet and exercise). The failure to control one’s weight within societally acceptable levels is seen as a moral failure rather than resulting from complex factors relating to the social determinants of health (i.e., …

Body-Map Storytelling: A Qualitative Exploration Of The Lived Experiences Of Hospital Care Amongst Street Involved Youth, Chelsey Fedchenko

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This social work study explores the experiences of hospital care amongst street-involved (SI) youth. Given that SI youth are at a higher risk for health-related harms and experience significant barriers to health care services, they are at an increased likelihood of hospitalization. Yet, inadequate health care support for SI youth remains a critical problem in Canada. While hospital care amongst adult homeless populations has been well studied interdisciplinary, there is a scarcity of research investigating the hospital care experiences amongst SI youth. The aim of this qualitative, arts-based study was to explore how street-life contributes to hospitalization, how SI youth …

Investigating The Role Of The Mammalian Dsrnai Pathway In Preventing Infection By Respiratory Syncytial Virus And Human Coronavirus, Iliana Portelli

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

dsRNA interference (dsRNAi) is an antiviral innate immune response that uses long dsRNA (>40bp) to inhibit gene expression through the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway. dsRNAi is an important antiviral defense mechanism in plants, invertebrates, and fungi. However, its use as an antiviral mechanism in vertebrates is not well understood. Evidence proving the significance of dsRNAi in vertebrate cells does exist, but there is still a lack of research in this area, particularly with the use of long dsRNA. Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and human coronaviruses (HCoVs) are two single stranded RNA (ssRNA) viruses that infect airway cells. This study …

Is Trust A Zero-Sum Game? What Happens When Institutional Sources Get It Wrong, Andrew Dawson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, trust in mainstream institutions is on the decline while people are increasingly turning to alternative media and conspiracy theories. Previous research has suggested that these trends may be linked, but the exact nature of the relationship is unclear. In a fractured informational environment, is trust a neutral process, where each source is judged independently, or is it in fact a zero-sum competition, where a loss for one side is a gain for the other? Across three experimental studies (N = 2,951) we examined how people react when a source makes a serious error, …

Assessing Road Dust Impacts On Macroinvertebrates Community Structure In Canadian Arctic Lakes, Hong Yi Gao

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the Canadian Arctic, unpaved gravel roads are essential for regional accessibility but are also potential sources of road dust runoff. My study investigated the impacts of road dust from the Dempster and Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highways on adjacent freshwater ecosystems, focusing on water quality parameters and macroinvertebrate communities. Using a stratified random sampling design, 18 lakes were studied across two regions (boreal forest and tundra) and three distance categories from the road (0-300 m, 300-600 m, and > 600 m). Contrary to my initial hypotheses, findings revealed no significant differences in water quality or invertebrate communities relative to distance from the road. …

Social Interaction, Social Cognition, And Personality In Gartersnakes And Ball Pythons, Morgan Skinner

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Snakes are often considered non-social animals. However, this is mostly an untested assumption and the limited research that has been done has shown that snakes interact socially when given the opportunity. Here, the complexity of snake social interactions was explored through a social cognition and personality lens. Group and individual behavioural assays were used to explore flexibility and consistency in social interactions. The results provide evidence that elucidate the function, development, and evolution of these behaviours in snakes. In the first experimental chapter, chapter 2, social network analysis was used to provide a detailed description of aggregation behaviour in 4 …

Freedom Of Emotional Expression: Exploring The Effects Of Emotional Expression Restriction On Marginalized Identities, Erik Caceros

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Across two studies we examined the relation between emotional expression restriction – perceiving that others restrict one’s freedom to determine how they express their authentic emotions– on people’s emotion regulation strategies and their well-being. In cross-sectional Study 1 (N = 438), people of colour felt significantly greater collective and personal emotional expression restriction relative to White people suggesting that feelings of emotional expression restriction are more prevalent among members of marginalized versus dominant groups. However, among both groups, perceiving collective emotional expression restriction was significantly associated with greater feelings of personal emotional restriction, which in turn, was related to the …

Elucidating Mechanisms Of Enhanced Dsrna-Nanophytoglycogen Innate Immune Responses In Healthy Human Cells, Nicholas Jadaa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Immunostimulatory nucleic acids, such as long double-stranded RNA (ds)RNA, can stimulate innate immune responses in a non-sequence specific manner. These molecules are recognized by pattern-recognition receptors in the cytoplasm, endosome, and on the cell surface. Activation leads to the production of mediators of innate immune pathways, including type I interferon and proinflammatory cytokines. Although these receptors are present in all cells, their role in non-immune cells is often overlooked due to their lower level of responsiveness. Nanocarriers can enhance these nucleic acid-mediated responses, allowing for exploration of innate immune pathways in non-immune cells. Nanoparticles as carriers of nucleic acids can …

Virtual Justice?: An Analysis Of Access To Court For People Experiencing Homelessness, Kaitlin Humer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Homelessness in Canada remains a wicked social problem that often intersects with compounding forms of marginalization. The criminalization of homelessness and living life in the public sphere explain, in part, why this population is likely to interact with the criminal justice system. Following the onset of the pandemic, the courts were forced to modernize and embrace digital technologies to maintain operations. Now four years since these changes, there are no signs of turning back and the court system is continuing forward with a hybrid model. Despite this, there is minimal research on the impact of virtual court proceedings on people …

Exposing White Supremacist Ideologies: How Awareness Influences Beliefs In Western Bc's White Working Class, Jessa Paddison

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Theodore Allen posits that the white working class plays a pivotal role in anti-racist and anti-capitalist movements. The capitalist system, he argues, sustains itself by fostering an identification with whiteness among the white working class, which impedes alliances across racial lines and perpetuates ignorance regarding capitalism's limitations. This qualitative study seeks to explore the potential for disrupting white supremacist ideologies among white working-class individuals through heightened awareness of whiteness. Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical whiteness Studies (CwS), the research aims to expose these ideologies by fostering critical reflection and anti-racist behaviours. The study employs a comparative approach …

Meta-Understanding: Implications For Psychological Well-Being In Diverse Communities, Ting Hsueh

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Feeling personally understood during day-to-day interactions is a rewarding experience for people and has been linked to greater psychological well-being. But are interpersonal situations the only contexts in which people desire to feel understood by others? We theorize that since individuals tie themselves to their social groups, individuals will also experience greater psychological well-being when they feel that other people in the world around them understand core elements of their group identity, what we call meta-understanding. We also examined whether meta-understanding is perceived to a different extent for members of dominant and marginalized groups in society. In Study 1 ( …

A Comparative In Vitro Investigation Of Rainbow Trout Vig-3 And Human Isg15, Kristof Jenik, Sarah J. Poynter, Shanee Herrington-Krause, Kayla Samms, Nichole Sanchez Diaz, Stephanie J. Dewitte-Orr, Tania Rodriguez-Ramos, Brian Dixon, Adebisi Sanyaolu, Tamiru Alkie, Bryce M. Warner, Nikesh Tailor, Shawna Semple

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The aquaculture industry is a big part of the global economy, supplying food and supporting many livelihoods, yet it faces formidable challenges from diverse aquatic pathogens, especially viruses. Effective antiviral treatments are lacking for both humans and economically significant farmed fish like rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). When viruses invade host cells, pattern recognition receptors detect viral components, initiating intracellular signaling and type I interferon (IFN-I) production. IFN-I triggers interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) that establish an antiviral state in infected and nearby cells, curbing viral spread. In rainbow trout, a particularly understudied ISG is viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV)-induced gene 3 (vig-3), …

“Are We Truly Disruptors?” A Thematic Analysis Of Two Canadian Teachers Disrupting The Status Quo In Their Classrooms, V Pereira

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This critical qualitative study looked to better understand the education system as an oppressive force, as well as highlight the strategies current Canadian teachers use to resist racism and colonialism in their classrooms. Using an inductive thematic analysis framework, my data sample consisted of 9 episodes from the podcast series The Chey and Pav Show: Teachers Talking Teaching featuring Toronto-based educators Chey Cheney and Pav (Pawan) Wander. The analysis identified two overarching themes pertaining to Pedagogy and Subject Content. The findings indicated that the educators have undergone a personal journey of social justice learning consisting of reflectivity and accountability, which …