title: Lamb Wave Propagation and Material Characterization of Metallic and Composite Aerospace Structures for Improved Structural Health Monitoring (SHM)

abstract:
The most commonly used methods for solving the Lamb wave equations for composite laminates consist of using laminated plate theory or 3D linear elasticity by assuming an orthotropic and/or higher symmetry. This assumption may not be true, if the actuators and sensors in an orthotropic or transversely isotropic laminates are installed in a non-principal direction.  Therefore, this dissertation presents a full derivation and experimental validation of Lamb wave equations for n-layered monoclinic composite laminates. The derivation is based on linear 3D elasticity by considering the displacement
fields in all three directions and by using the partial wave technique in combination with the Global Matrix (GM) approach. A robust method for numerically solving the Lamb wave equations is also presented. The presented method is verified experimentally by analyzing the propagation of Lamb waves in two different composite laminates constructed out of unidirectional carbon-fibre epoxy prepreg (Cycom G40-800/5276-1) and fibre-metal laminate (GLARE 3-3/4). The experimentally verified carbon-fibre epoxy laminate is further analyzed to study the effects of changes in the material properties such
as E11, E22, G12, and density on the Lamb waves’ propagation characteristics. The analysis is performed by using the experimentally verified Lamb wave equations to generate the phase velocity dispersion and slowness curves by reducing  E11, E22, G12, and density with the intent of representing defects.
In order to accurately generate the Lamb wave dispersion curves, proper material properties such as stiffness and Poisson’s ratio are required. Therefore, this dissertation also presents a one-sided in-situ method based on the ultrasonic wave velocity measurements to determine the stiffness
properties of isotropic and transversely isotropic material. The technique consists of generating and receiving quasi-longitudinal and quasi-transverse waves at different propagation angles and using a non-linear least square technique to inversely calculate the stiffness constants. The method is experimentally verified on an isotropic aluminum Al 7050-T7451 with two different thicknesses and a transversely isotropic (Cycom 977-2-12k-HTA) composite sample fabricated using 24 plies of unidirectional prepregs.


title: Contextual Coherence in the Visual Imagination: An Interdisciplinary Analysis

abstract: This thesis describes an analysis of contextual coherence in the visual imagination using three disciplines: cognition, computation, and neuroscience. I examine the topic by augmenting a model of the visual imagination, SOILIE, with an improved version of their top-n model of coherence. I show that the augmented, serial local hill search model, Coherencer, is an improvement over the original model using a new, quantitative evaluation. I then demonstrate that Coherencer is better than a competitive model from the literature on general coherence; it is better than the original top-n model across different compression representations, mainly co-occurrence probabilities and holographic vectors; and it is consistent with contemporary, neuroscientific research on the hippocampus, specifically Scene Construction Theory.


title: Combining SPF and Source Routing for an Efficient Probing Solution in IPv6 Topology Discovery

abstract:
For efficient network management, knowing the full topology of the network is important. Topology discovery using source routing and routing protocols are two well known methods to discover layer 3 connectivity. Source routing has the probing space explosion phenomenon that generates a large volume of traffic. As a result, source routing based approach takes a significant amount of time for network operators to discover and troubleshoot the whole network. Although routing protocol based approach like OSPFv3 discovers the network connectivity, the full IPv6 address cannot be discovered, as the
approach only discovers the prefix portion of IPv6 addresses. This thesis proposes an efficient probing space reduction algorithm by combining source routing and OSPFv3. The idea is to apply source routing based on the information obtained from OSPFv3 based discovery for IPv6. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces redundant probing significantly which is useful for network management.


title: Familiar Faces:  The Effects of Experience on Change Blindness

abstract:
Change blindness is influenced by factors such as: set size (the number of items in the scene), change size (the degree of change), and familiarity (whether or not the change occurs in a familiar stimulus). The objectives of this research were: (a) to investigate the role of familiarity in detecting changes in human faces and (b) to establish the temporal locus of the face familiarity effect within Tovey & Herdman’s (2014) stage model for change blindness. Chinese and Caucasian participants detected changes in images of same-race (familiar) and other-race (unfamiliar) faces in a flicker
paradigm. Familiarity, set size, and change size were jointly manipulated to determine the locus of the face familiarity effect using Sternberg’s additive factors logic. Caucasian (but not Chinese) participants were faster and more accurate in detecting changes in Caucasian faces than in Chinese faces, and a 3-way interaction in the Caucasian participants’ accuracy data was observed.


title: NGOs and Memory in Colombia: The Case of Medellin

abstract:
This thesis is concerned with analyzing the production of narratives of the past in different social contexts such as those to which the NGOs of Medellín have access. This thesis is organized into three chapters. The first chapter develops the theoretical framework of the thesis in which I argue the importance of the concept of institutional memory. In the second chapter, I seek to identify the origins of contemporary memory practices in Medellín. I concentrate on describing how the process of urbanization of Medellín made  local memory practices very particular and noteworthy. And finally,
in the third chapter, I examine a set of important institutional memory initiatives to demonstrate how neighborhood-based organizations were dispossessed of their own ways of remembering. In this chapter, I demonstrate that such practices entered into the civil society organization model promoted by NGOs and the local government.


title: Obstacle-Avoiding Path Existence Queries in a Simple Polygon

abstract:
A fundamental problem in computational geometry is determining whether it is possible to travel between two points in the plane while avoiding a set of obstacles. If the obstacles are known in advance, they can be preprocessed so that path-existence queries can be performed efficiently.
In this thesis, we consider a variation of the path-existence query problem where each query contains an additional set of obstacles that must be avoided. We show how to preprocess a simple polygon so that given a source and a destination within that polygon, as well as a set of pairwise disjoint convex
polygon or disk obstacles, we can efficiently determine whether there is an obstacle-avoiding path between the source and the destination.


title: The Ontological Politics of Disablement:  Heidegger, Disability, and the Ontological Difference

abstract:
What does it mean to be disabled?  To answer this question, this dissertation uses Martin Heidegger’s concept of the ‘ontological difference’, the difference between human existence and that of everything else.  I argue that a key issue facing disabled people, and thus disability studies, is the administration of the experience of disability via objective categories; to be disabled is to be administered.  To make this case, I look to three diverse sites: tax forms, artwork and physical therapy.  In each case, the ontological difference becomes manifest.  In each case we see ontological
politics at work, where bodies are shaped in particular ways (and not others), where lives are pulled in particular ways (and not others). I suggest we can reformulate disability politics as problems of ontology.
	I pursue my argument as follows.  I begin by outlining what I call a ‘meta-theoretical pragmatism’, arguing the worth of theory lies in its ability to connect experience in new ways.  Secondly, I arrange the dominant theoretical approaches in disability studies as ‘ontological vectors’, which I compare with Heidegger’s phenomenology in the following chapter.  In chapters three,
four and five, I examine tax forms, artwork, and physical therapy; in each case we find ontological differentiation, where objective categories shape, and are shaped out of, human experience.  In the final chapter I review the worth of these investigations, and outline my future research, a move from existential phenomenology to political economy, using the example of Ontario disability labour supports.


title: Phenotype-dependent social associations among male sexual rivals in a polygamous fish, the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

abstract:
Recent theory predicts that males should choose the social context that maximizes their relative attractiveness to females while minimizing sperm competition risk. By preferentially associating with less attractive and less competitive sexual rivals, a male may increase his reproductive success. Using the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata), I tested for non-random social associations among males in mixed-sex groups based on two phenotypic traits (body length, body colouration) that predict relative sexual attractiveness to females. In a dichotomous-choice test, focal males exhibited a
significant preference for mixed-sex groups that included a less colourful and smaller male rival, thereby potentially increasing their relative attractiveness, as predicted. However, this preference was not expressed in nature. Males in mixed-sex shoals in a natural stream population in Trinidad were not assorted by either body length or colour, perhaps owing to constraints placed on preferred social associations by sexual conflict and the fission-fusion nature of guppy shoals.


title: Simulation of Ultrasound Computed Tomography in Diffraction Mode

abstract:
Ultrasound computed tomography (USCT) aims at safe and fast high resolution imaging but due to its complexity and time consuming reconstruction procedures this imaging modality is not commercial in use. In this research, we analyze Ultrasound computed tomography in diffraction mode. The wave equation is theoretically and numerically solved with Helmholtz equation using Green’s function. We propose a new approach for reconstructing the parameters of interest. The simulated  results indicate that proposed method can yield images with higher image resolution with a better computation time
compared to other existing models therefore reducing the complexity.


title: Investigating Interactive Biophilic Wearable Objects

abstract: Designers apply different design elements such as form, colour, texture, light, and movement in the design of products. This interdisciplinary study aims to investigate the application of ‘biophilic movement’ in the design of interactive wearable objects. In order to investigate how designers might incorporate ‘biophilic movement’ in the design of products, this research draws from the discipline of biology. This thesis suggests that biophilic movement can potentially create a pleasurable experience and enhance the interaction between people and wearable objects with biophilic movements. The key findings of this study include: 1) Adding biophilic movement can add interest to biophilic wearable objects by engaging the people who interact with it; 2) Identifying and categorizing biologically inspired movements can help designers in the area of biology-to-design; and 3) Presenting a biophilic semantic differential scale that can be used to understand how people interpret movements in biophilic artifacts.


title: Optimal Placement of Controllers in Software Defined Networks

abstract:
This thesis focuses on deriving exact methods to place controllers on a network for the planning problem of Software Defined Network (SDN). A first mathematical model, referred to as the planning model, is proposed that decides the optimal location to place controllers on a network while minimizing the overall cost. A second mathe- matical model, referred to as the expansion model, is proposed that determines the changes to optimally place controllers on an existing SDN network. The advantages of the proposed models are to incorporate realistic constrains. In the planning problem, as the
input size increased, the time to find the optimal solution also increased in non-polynomial time. The expansion problem results show that changes can be made to existing implementations by altering many of the input variables. The expansion model allows control of how much of the existing network changes


title: Policing the Pub

abstract: This paper starts and ends with the English pub. And the concern here is for how it was policed, from the seventeenth century up to the First World War. Interconnected are concepts of drunkenness, idleness, disorder, class and social control; all of them key variables when analyzing the politics behind England's many drinking houses, and how they developed. Our lens is one of 'policing': a working philosophy developed by European police theorists to govern entire populations towards productivity. Policing is about social control, about adapting unwanted behaviours and peoples towards favourable ends (generally bourgeois and industrial). Public houses for the poor and working class (alehouses, ginshops, beerhouses etc.) were, consistently, accused by England's ruling interests (and others) of breeding drunkenness, idleness, and social degeneracy. Slated, regularly, for regulation and reform; pubs became ideological sites of class conflict where Drink's many interests battled for moral influence and political spaces. Early policing methods were the initiatives of individual Kings and rogue rulers, but the nineteenth century witnessed comprehensive (and sometimes united) policing programmes aimed at reforming and reducing drinking houses en masse. Action and reaction; these battles between groups, and within groups, would shape the pub.


title: Wayfinding in University Settings: A Case Study of the Wayfinding Design Process at Carleton University

abstract:
This research focuses on the complex wayfinding issues within a university campus, with Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, as a specific case study. A literature search on wayfinding issues in such environments as well as a primary research engaging several stakeholders was conducted. This served as the bases for the investigation methods. These methods were semi-structured interviews with organisation staff and design consultants, an online survey of end-users and finally an archival document analysis that related these findings to policies and documentation available through Carleton
websites.
The study examined best practice at Carleton University. It was concluded that designers have a role in providing effective wayfinding design, which should be included earlier in the design process. In addition, designers need to be aware of inclusive activities, such as understanding the needs of special people with disabilities and outliers, which may result in creativity and innovation that exceeds typical aesthetic standards.


title: Moral Distanciation: Modernity, Distance, and the Ethics of Care

abstract:
This thesis undertakes a phenomenological investigation of the relationship between distance and politics. In the contemporary socio-political context, it is becoming ever more apparent that there are other, perhaps more alienating kinds of distance, apart from mere spatio-temporal distances. A feminist ethics of care reveals the ways that emotional-psychological distance can be detrimental to the meeting of human needs within socio-political life. Dominant, rationalist approaches to politics, which emphasize impartiality, objectivity, and universality, are not only ill-equipped to address
emotional-psychological distance; indeed, they exacerbate this kind of distancing through the structure of moral reasoning on which they rely. Notions of ‘common humanity’ – central to universal-rationalist approaches, and requiring the establishment of a public/private boundary – intensifies this emotional-psychological distancing from others in the effort to bridge the spatio-temporal gaps between distant individuals, and impersonally mediate relations between the multiplicity of proximate strangers in modern metropolitan environments.


title: Dissident Diaspora: Genres of Maroon Witness in Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean Literature

abstract:
This study brings human rights criticism into conversation with postcolonial and transnational studies in order to contribute to a decolonizing of trauma theory. I demonstrate how generically innovative writers from the Caribbean diaspora invoke the tradition of the fugitive slave or maroon, and in so doing, put forward revolutionary ideas about identity, race, and belonging. The genre-bending literature examined in the dissertation is engaged in a form of dissident literary maroonage. Overall, the texts demonstrate a dual focus on ethics and genre as they confront the vexed representation of
human rights issues, past and present. I argue that a human rights-oriented approach to Caribbean literature, in tandem with critical attention to form and genre, can attend to witness testimonies, memory, and representations of suffering in literary texts, and can, consequently, draw attention to an ethically-charged poetics of diaspora.
 	The Francophone and Anglophone texts examined in the dissertation, by M. NourbeSe Philip, Dionne Brand, Gisèle Pineau, Myriam Chancy, Edwidge Danticat, Jan J. Dominique, and Saidiya Hartman, represent the paradoxes and tensions of human rights issues
within a Caribbean context: they engage productively with loss and mourning; underscore the ambivalent impact of ethnic, cultural, and racial mixing; narrate survivor as well as perpetrator testimony; and contribute to alternative memory projects informed by an interrogation of belonging/un-belonging. I argue that the deployment of the maroon trope in these texts indicates an effort to “Caribbeanize” issues related to human rights; consequently, I introduce the concept of maroon witnessing to help bridge the gap between critical approaches to postcolonial studies and typically western-biased
human rights scholarship and trauma studies. Ultimately, the diasporic writers discussed in this project emerge as witnesses and activists who, from their position “lòt bò dlo,” across the waters, confront the limits of genre and contribute to a dissenting, defiant re-articulation of Caribbean poetics.


title: Stories & Hypnaedificatio

abstract: Architects are not simply designers, and so it should follow that architecting is not designing. Through Buildingtelling, a method of conceiving buildings through details, architects can address the threefold condition of building that extends beyond design and into architecture. In Hypnaedificātiō, the dual text of this thesis, the act of Architecting is further interrogated through the story of the making of a Library for Thinking in a Norwegian garden of Eros.


title: The Outsider:  Elizabeth P. MacCallum, the Canadian Department of External Affairs, and the Palestine Mandate to 1947

abstract:
Elizabeth Pauline MacCallum was Canada’s leading expert on the Middle East in the first part of the twentieth century. From 1925 to 1935, as a research analyst and author for the Foreign Policy Association (FPA), she gained international recognition for her scholarship on the problems and challenges confronting the Middle East and the British Mandate in Palestine, the central ground of dispute between the Arab and Jewish peoples. MacCallum joined Canada’s Department of External Affairs (DEA) in 1942, not as a regional specialist, but as a wartime clerk. Where there had been previously no
clear official thinking regarding the Middle East, MacCallum, using a combination of expertise and persistence, slowly gained recognition among her peers for her understanding of the region.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine MacCallum’s ideas about the Middle East by investigating the foundation, development, and substance of her ideas about the region. The thesis also identifies the role that she played in the Department of External Affairs and interrogates the manner in which she applied her ideas as a member of the DEA. In particular, this study assesses her part in the making of
Canada’s first policy towards the Middle East, which came together in 1947.
In assessing MacCallum’s ideas and her role as a member of the Department of External Affairs during the period 1942-1947, the thesis contends that she can best be understood as an outsider — a specialist in a department of generalists, a woman in a department of men, and an Arabist in a department dominated by Eurocentric and balance of power thinking.  The thesis explores her efforts to put into practice her ideas as a basis for Canada’s approach to the Arab-Zionist dispute. The thesis further demonstrates that
MacCallum made clear the dangers that the problem of Palestine posed to international peace and security, and the likely split that it would cause among the Great Powers over the territory’s fate. She opposed the division of Palestine between its Arab and Jewish peoples in 1947 and predicted the Middle Eastern war soon to come.


title: Empirical Evaluation of Mobile Applications and an Adaptive Approach to Computation Offloading

abstract:
With the widespread of rich mobile applications, the usage of mobile devices has become popular nowadays. However, mobile devices are limited in battery, CPU, storage. These constraints prevent mobile devices from widely running all kinds of rich mobile applications. Computation offloading is believed to be a potential solution to the hardware limitations of mobile devices for energy saving and/or higher performance.  To meet this goal, a number of experiments have been performed in this research to compare energy efficiency of mobile devices with different offloading targets. Experiments
have also been conducted to examine the impact of various factors and provide insights on power consumption for different mobile applications. Finally, an adaptive algorithm, based on experimental results, has been developed to automatically select the most suitable computation target which has enough capacity to execute computationally intensive applications for energy saving and achieve a desirable performance at the same time.


title: Development of a Full-Flight Simulator for Ab-initio Flight Training with Emphasis on Hardware and Motion Integration

abstract: As commercially-available flight simulators are tailored mostly for commercial airlines, there is currently a lack of low-cost, type-specific, high-fidelity aircraft simulators for introductory flight training. A project was undertaken by the Carleton University Applied Dynamics Laboratory to assess the feasibility of developing a viable economical alternative to the currently-available small aircraft flight training devices, thereby providing a supplementary means of training that could be available to small flight schools. Following completion of the prototype, an assessment of the simulator determined that despite a few deficiencies that could be circumvented, development of a low-cost, type-specific, high-fidelity aircraft simulator for ab-initio flight training is feasible.


title: The Effect of Cracks and Geo-Morphology on Evaporation from Clay Soils.

abstract:
Crack development in soils and the associated potential for higher evaporation rates are pertinent to many agricultural and engineering applications. Many researchers have attempted to model crack formation though none have succeeded to comprehensively capture it. Chertkov's model uses only two independent parameters to model crack development. This research sought to verify Chertkov's model, as well as to analyze the coupled effect of crack growth and evaporation. A clay drying test was carried out where crack development was tracked using  a laser scanner, as well as by pixel
analysis of surface photographs. The drying test has shown that crack surfaces contributed at most to 6% of total evaporation before de-saturation and up to 63.4% after de-saturation. Results have also shown that Chertkov's model could model crack growth, though with unrealistic parameter values.  In contradiction to Chertkov's assumption, the fractographic analysis showed that plastic strains appeared to be important.


title: FPGA Based Coprocessors for Clouds

abstract:
Computer Clouds are growing in size and customer base. Lately their growth has been limited or at least influenced by hosted server’s power consumption.
FPGA is a good contender for providing task offloading to CPU based servers. However hard coded FPGA solutions are not flexible enough to support a variety of applications being used in Clouds. FPGA soft processors provide the required flexibility but not the speed. High Level Synthesis requires FPGA reconfiguration.
The solution to enabling use of FPGAs in Clouds seems to be logical: use a fundamentally simple and small processor
(flexibility) that runs code that is as close to hardware fixed function architecture as possible (speed).
The above set of requirements has led to the creation of hardware architectures that improve the existing state-of-the-art with features applicable to the Cloud computing environment.
A real life design inspired by requirements from financial industry is implemented on a FPGA.


title: Edge Preserving Image Reconstruction: Experimental Applications to Thoracic EIT

abstract:
Tomographic image reconstruction is an inverse problem, where unknown parameters describing
an internal volume are estimated from a set of known measurements (observations).
Tomographic images are increasingly used in diagnostic applications in medicine and other
industries, such as seismology and non-destructive testing. In many biomedical applications,
the underlying anatomy contains sharp interfaces between the different organs and
tissue types. Classical linear formulations of tomographic image reconstruction tend to
smooth these sharp interfaces and produce blurred, low contrast
images. Alternatives
to these linear image reconstruction algorithms are edge-preserving image reconstruction
methods (EPIRM) which preserve the sharp interfaces by non-linear parameterizations.
The main aim of this thesis is to develop novel EPIRMs applied to reconstruct high
contrast, edge-preserving images which are robust against noise and data outliers. This
thesis proposes three novel variants of the EPIRM and evaluates the robustness of the
proposed EPIRMs against measurement errors.
This thesis proposes an evaluation framework to qualitatively and quantitatively compare
the
performance of four competing methods (iterative Gauss-Newton (GN) with
Tikhonov regularization term, GN with NOSER algorithm, Total Variation (TV), and
an L1 norm based inverse problem solved using the Primal-Dual Interior Point Method
(hereinafter referred to as the PDIPM) against that of the proposed EPIRMs over Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) simulated data. The simulation results show that the proposed EPIRMs offer the highest accuracy in the reconstruction of two low conductive inclusions with an overall average
accuracy score of 2.57 (out of 3), vs. 1.78 for TV as the second
best performing method.
Moreover, the results show that the proposed EPIRM with the sum of absolute values (L1
norm) on the image and data terms of the inverse problem offers the highest robustness
against measurement errors with an average robustness score of 3 (out of 3), averaged over
three different measurement conditions. The PDIPM with the L1 norms on its inverse
problem terms offers an average robustness score of 1.33 and is the second robust method
in dealing with the uncertainties.


title: Endwall Flows in Transonic Turbine Cascades

abstract:
The results of an investigation of the midspan and endwall flows in transonic linear turbine cascades are documented here.   A family of five turbine cascades with different levels of flow turning and aerodynamic loading were used for this study to quantify the effects of these parameters on loss generation in compressible flows.  Experimental data on these flows are scarce in the open literature.  In addition, the application of two different passive flow control techniques for reducing the endwall losses is examined here: these are referred to as endwall contouring, and airfoil
pressure-side modification.
  The experimental investigations were conducted in the Pratt and Whitney Canada (PWC) High-Speed Wind Tunnel Laboratory at Carleton University.  The measurements were made using a seven-hole pressure probe downstream of the cascades at both design and off-design Mach numbers.  In addition to the measurements, surface flow visualization was conducted to assist in the interpretation of the flow physics.  The results from complementary numerical investigations are also presented, and compared with the experimental data.
  Overall, the examined secondary flow
structures are in agreement with previous low-speed findings.  However, in contrast to low-speed results, the downstream mixing losses are mainly attributed to the dissipation of primary kinetic energy in the present study.   Raising the exit Mach number results in weaker secondary flow structures and smaller secondary losses.
  The experimental results demonstrate that endwall contouring is a viable option for mitigating the secondary flows, particularly for the more highly-loaded cascade.  The modification of the airfoil pressure surface is also found to provide a significant benefit in
terms of endwall loss reduction.  The differences between the measurements and the computational results highlight the need for detailed experimental investigations.


title: Sequence stratigraphic, lithostratigraphic and stable isotope analysis of the Minto Inlet Formation and Kilian Formation of the Shaler Supergroup, Northwest Territories

abstract:
The Minto Inlet Formation is sub-divided into three regionally extensive members: the lower evaporite, carbonate and upper evaporite members. The Kilian Formation is sub-divided into 4 third-order depositional sequences and their respective systems tracts. Both formations reflect deposition on a subtidal to supratidal ramp, influenced by siliciclastic supply, arid climate and tectono-eustasy.
Sulphate samples from the Minto Inlet Formation are characterized by low δ34S (~17‰) with little secular variability, whereas samples from the Kilian Formation show high average δ34S (~26‰) and high
secular variability. Biogeochemical models indicate an initial decrease in the pyrite burial fraction (ƒp) from ~1 to ~0.3, was initiated prior to the deposition of the Minto Inlet Formation, and a return of ƒp values near 1 (recorded in the Kilian Formation). These changes are interpreted to be the result of basin-scale evaporite deposition during the middle Neoproterozoic, driven by the migration of Rodinia across arid climate belts.


title: Towards Efficient and Fair Radio Resource Allocation Schemes for Interference-Limited Celluar Networks

abstract:
The focus of this thesis is on studying the tradeoff between efficiency and fairness in interference-limited cellular networks. We start by characterizing the optimal tradeoff between efficiency and fairness in cellular networks, where efficiency is measured by the sum-rate and fairness is measured by the Jain's fairness index. Finding the optimal Efficiency-Jain Tradeoff (EJT) corresponds to solving potentially difficult non-convex optimization problems. To alleviate this difficulty, we derive sufficient conditions, which are shown to be sharp and naturally satisfied in various radio
resource allocation problems. These conditions provide us with a means for identifying cases in which finding the optimal EJT can be reformulated as convex optimization problems. The new formulations are used to devise computationally-efficient resource schedulers that achieve the optimal EJT and surpass baseline schedulers in terms of EJT, median rate, and user satisfaction, without incurring additional complexity.
Finding the optimal EJT in the long-term average rates in interference-limited cellular networks is tackled by designing  an efficient inter-cell interference coordination
(ICIC) scheme to manage interference by coordinating the allocation of radio resources across multiple cells. The goal of the ICIC scheme is to solve a multi-cell weighted sum-rate maximization optimization problem. By identifying a separable structure and a network-flow structure, we show that such optimization problem is amenable to powerful optimization methods, including the primal-decomposition method, the projected-subgradient method, and the network-flow optimization methods. Using these optimization methods, we propose a polynomial-time distributed ICIC scheme that finds a
near-optimum multi-cell resource allocations. In comparison with baseline ICIC schemes, the proposed scheme is shown to achieve higher gains in efficiency, Jain’s fairness index, cell-edge rate, and outage probability.


title: Screen, Simulation, Situation: An Archaeology of Early Film Animation, 1908-1921.

abstract:
Recent film scholarship has turned to the kinetic element of cinema as a way of bridging analog and digital practice, often latching on to animation as the vehicle for describing this relationship.  This study thus explores the origins of animation in cinema from 1908-1921 in an attempt to construct a meaningful connection between old and new animated media.  Two filmmakers in particular pioneered the first animated films at this time: Winsor McCay and Emile Cohl.  These graphic artists illustrated the ability of the animated image, even in its most nascent stages in film history, to
negotiate a personalized expression of reality through a myriad of technological and sociocultural shifts which threatened to efface their artistry. Positioned between contemporary and archaic forms of animated media, their work functions as a paradigm of how to understand the animated image through the three cinematic components of screen, simulation, and situation.


title: The conflation of health and beauty in advertising: A critical multimodal discourse analysis of three television commercials

abstract:
This study applies a critical multimodal discourse analysis to three television
commercials: 1) Neutrogena ‘Healthy Skin Liquid Makeup’, 2) Colgate ‘Advanced Total
whitening toothpaste’ and 3) Danone ‘Activia probiotic yogurt’. In order to gain further
insight into how advertising discourses can shape body image ideologies, this study sets
out to investigate how television commercials construct a relationship between health and
beauty. This research includes analysis of both the visual and the verbal modes, drawing
on Systemic Functional Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Multimodal Discourse
Analysis, and Inter-mode relations. The findings are discussed in terms o f the theories of
healthism discourse and aestheticization of everyday life. In addition, Pierre Bourdieu’s
concepts of habitus, lifestyle, taste, capital, and field will be used to discuss how the
health-beauty consolidation is recursively produced and reproduced by society and its
members. The results of this study suggest that there is a colonization o f the advertising
non-health related products under healthism discourse, and this type of advertising is cooccurring
with ideologies of the body beautiful resulting in an unprecedented
consolidation between the concepts o f health and beauty. These findings underscore the
need for media literacy and hence the importance o f practicing and also teaching
discourse analysis approaches such as SFL, CDA, and MDA that are designed to expose
ideological underpinnings.


title: Contributions to the Measurement and Control System Design of the Carleton Supercritical Fluid Heat Transfer Test Loops

abstract: Two thermalhydraulic test facilities, namely the Carleton Supercritical Water Loop (C-SCW Loop) and the Carleton R-134a Loop (C-R134a Loop) are currently being designed for experimentally investigating the convective heat transfer characteristics of supercritical fluids. This work details the selection of the flow control devices on the C-SCW Loop, the design of the pressure control modules for the two test loops, the instrumentation for the two test loops and the design of the data acquisition system.


title: Custodians of the Creed: A Comparative Study on the Level of Religiosity Among First- and Second-Wave Iraqi-Shi'a Muslims in an American Community

abstract:
The dissertation compares the level of religiosity among first-wave (1991-2002) and second-wave (2003-2011) Iraqi-Shi’a Muslims residing in greater Dearborn, Michigan. In order to accomplish this task, it is necessary to first provide a detailed historical survey that explores the Iraqi Shi’as’ resilience in overcoming centuries of precarious challenges to their religious and ethnic identity. This survey begins with the struggles the Iraqi Shi’a faced in their native homeland followed by their mixed experience in America. The historical research is complemented with empirical data collected
by interviewing fifty members of the Iraqi-Shi’a community or twenty-five from each wave. The interview results reveal that the first wave appears slightly more religious than the second. This overarching observed pattern will be analyzed in light of Will Kymlicka’s multiculturalism model, Robert E. Park’s race relations cycle, Charles Glock, Benjamin Ringer, and Earl Babbie’s comfort hypothesis, and Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou’s segmented assimilation theory. The two waves espouse a moderate, but nonetheless traditional approach to their religion that is almost completely devoid of any
controversial ritualistic practices or radical belief systems.


title: Subadditive Approaches to Mixed Integer Programming

abstract:
Correctness and efficiency of two algorithms by Burdet and Johnson (1975) and Klabjan (2007) for solving pure integer linear programming problems are studied. These algorithms rely on Gomory's corner relaxation and subadditive duality. Examples are given to demonstrate the failure of these algorithms on specific IPs and ways of correcting errors in some cases are given. Klabjan's Generator Subadditive Functions have been generalized for mixed integer linear programs. These are (subadditive) dual feasible functions which have desirable properties that allow us to use them as
certificates of optimality and for sensitivity analysis purposes. Generating certificates of optimality has been done for specific families of discrete optimization problems such as set covering and knapsack problems using (mixed) integer programming formulations. Some computational results have been reported on these problems at the end. Also, subadditive generator functions have been used for finding a finite representation of the convex hull of MILPs which is a generalization of Bachem and Schrader's
and Wolsey's works on finite representations and value functions of
(mixed) integer linear programs.
Babak Moazzez, Carleton University, Thesis (PhD), 2014, Pages: 117.


title: The Drift Diffusion Simulation of Coupled Ionic -Electronic Devices

abstract:
This thesis creates a numerical simulation scheme for a coupled ionic
electronic device and uses it to simulate a memristor based on an or-
ganic conductor called poly(3,4 ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene-
sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS). The modeled memristor consists of a thin
PEDOT:PSS strip with a metal contact on both sides and a drop
of an electrolyte solution with lithium and perchlorate ions. The
conductivity of the memristor changes when the lithium ions in the
electrolyte dedopes the PEDOT:PSS by bonding with PSS polymers.
A numerical drift diffusion and a Poisson solver was
implemented
with special features to model the physical properties of the memris-
tor. The developed simulation algorithm was tested using analytical
solutions to the drift diffusion equations and Poisson's equation. 1-
D and 2-D simulations were able to capture the essential physical
effects.


title: Analysis of Infusion Pump Data from CHEO

abstract:
The thesis objective is to analyze smart infusion pump data from the Children's
Hospital of Eastern Ontario to learn about pump usage. Trends in compliance and
hard limit events were shown to be potentially associated with drug library updates,
and can be used to assess library changes. In a case study for the drug gentamicin,
selection errors were the cause of more than 50% of hard limit events. A human
computer interaction issue was identified as the problem, where gentamicin has two
library entries that are named in a manner that may be confusing. Decision trees
were used to
determine factors that are associated with hard limits. Results showed
that higher hard limit event rates were associated with the NICU and Emergency
profiles, and with patients who weighed over 48 kg; these factors can be used to
target training and research. This thesis contributes to research in medication errors
and patient safety.


title: Understanding the Digital Cardwall for Agile Software Development

abstract:
In Agile software development, key artefacts used to support the process are the User Story
(usually recorded on a Storycard) and Story Cardwall (usually a dedicated portion of a
wall). These low-fidelity tools work together to help teams stay focused and self-manage
their projects. The need to support distributed teams and team members makes the physical
Cardwall impractical and teams are therefore migrating towards digital story management
tools. We wanted to learn how to design a digital Cardwall that leverages the benefits
of the physical Cardwall, while adding more value with
features only possible in a software
system. We conducted field studies of Agile teams and performed qualitative data analysis to
understand the needs for digital Cardwalls. We then used these findings to identify guidelines
for future design.


title: Identification of Novel Translation Related Genes in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

abstract:
Translation in eukaryotic organisms is a vital process in the gene expression pathway. This process requires control and precision to generate functional proteins that mediate cell activities. Previously, a large scale screening approach identified 80 novel Saccharomyces cerevisiae's genes that appeared to affect translation fidelity. In this current research, four candidate genes were selected for further investigation: YGR117C, YNL122C, YJR014W and YNL040W. The deletions of these genes were investigated for their effects on translation fidelity using plasmids, pUKC817, pUKC818 and
pUKC819, containing premature stop codons, UAA, UGA and UAG, respectively, in LacZ cassette. A GAL1 inducible plasmid was used to test translation efficiency of these deletion strains. YNL040W and YJR014W were screened for genetic interactions with other  translation genes. Altogether, our findings provide evidence for the involvement of the target genes in translation. It also supports the idea that there exist other novel translation genes that need to be investigated.


title: Observable 2D SLAM and Evidential Occupancy Grids

abstract:
The two main challenges offered by Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)
are that of observability and extending state estimation to exploration. This thesis
explores and uses solutions to render the SLAM problem observable, by proposing the
Reconfigurable Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) that addresses imposing observability,
maintaining observability and choice of observability constraints. Additionally,
Bayesian theory and Dempster-Shafer theory of evidential reasoning are analyzed, and
Occupancy grid based maps based on Dempster-Shafer theory of evidential reasoning
are created
and analyzed in large environment for their potential use in exploration
and obstacle avoidance. Tackling both issues with different algorithms yield better
solutions to the challenges offered by robotic exploration, and this is demonstrated
through simulation results in representative environments.


title: Numerical Investigation and Experimental Validation of a Novel Thermal Architecture for Spacecraft Thermal Management

abstract: A novel satellite thermal architecture to maximize the available radiation area on a spacecraft is proposed. The proposed architecture implements the state-of-the-art technology for thermal control in space. The research project is carried out in several steps. A transient numerical model is first developed to mathematically represent the novel architecture and analyze the critical mission cases. This is followed by the validation of the numerical model using flight data. For this, a large number of telemetry flight data is collected, organized, and analyzed. The model predictions and flight data compared very well within 4°C and without a significant time delay in the simulated results. With the confidence gained from the satisfactory model validation, the mathematical model is then used to design a four-radiator/condenser specimen to demonstrate capability of the model to simulate a more complex and integrated thermal control system.


title: Automatic Localization of Trackable Features in Retinal Fundus Images

abstract:
Laser photocoagulation is used to reduce vision loss due to degenerative eye conditions
by guiding a treatment laser over diseased tissue on the retina.
However, due to natural motions of the eye healthy retinal tissue can be damaged by the laser. Compensating for this motion can reduce this risk. Motion analysis of scanning
laser opthalmoscope (SLO) video provides information suitable for automatic laser aiming.
Motion estimation from SLO video can be achieved using landmark-based
motion tracking. In the ALET implementation, landmarks are manually
selected from a reference
image.
This thesis work automates the landmark selection process in two steps:
first, a set of candidate landmarks is found using a corner detection
procedure on a vessel-enhanced retinal image; and second, the set of candidate
landmarks are ranked in decreasing order of their estimated tracking
integrity.


title: The Impact of the Russian Military System on Nineteenth  Century Russian Expansionism in the Caucasus and Central Asia

abstract:
This work explores the Russian military system after the Napoleonic Wars, and the impact the military ideologies developed therein had on Russian expansionist efforts in two separate conflicts.  The Russian conquests of the Caucasus and Central Asian regions are the expansionist efforts under focus, and specifically battles at Dargo in the Caucasus and Khiva in Central Asia are analyzed.  It is argued that, due to a Russian military system that refused to move away from Napoleonic era tactics and ideas, the conquest of the Caucasus was a far more difficult endeavor than the Russian seizure of
Central Asia, where largely similar tactics were employed.  The established Russian military system created a military that was ill-suited for combat in the Caucasus, and disabled its ability to learn from that conflict.  This same system was equally responsible for allowing the Russians to easily defeat their enemies in a Central Asian setting.


title: Low Noise CMOS Voltage-Control Oscillator Design Methodology with Emphasis on Non-Linear Effect Contributions, 2.4 GHz CMOS Design Example

abstract:
This thesis demonstrates an attempt to link non-linear (transient) oscillator behavior with phase noise. Phase noise generation is first studied, starting with examining Groszkowski’s equation. After studying the mechanism, it is found that phase noise is determined by the transfer function and harmonics and based on which, a VCO design guideline is proposed to aid low phase noise VCO design. Then a novel VCO topology is proposed based on this guideline, aiming to reduce the harmonics and decrease the magnitude and the bandwidth of the transfer function. The circuit was designed and
implemented in 0.13um IBM CMOS technology. The simulated performance at 2.4GHz was -133dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset with supply current of 3.07mA at 1V supply.


title: Facing the Future with a Foot in the Past Americana, Nostalgia, and the Humanization of Musical Experience

abstract:
Americana, a musical genre defined by its place in a lineage of roots music styles and a nostalgic outlook is enjoying increasing mainstream popularity in response to general societal unease about the fast pace of social change and the increasing presence of technology in everyday life. Americana artists’ invocations of the past cultivate a psychic landscape of collective memory that quells fears of change by asserting the sustained value of the past. Instead of actively resisting social and technological change Americana artists, listeners and promoters embrace technology in service of a
nostalgically-motivated humanization and disintermediation of musical performance and consumption. Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings (who perform as “Gillian Welch”) and their 2011 album The Harrow & the Harvest are analyzed vis-à-vis the ways in which their musical and visual invocations of the rural past dialogue with a psychic landscape of collective memory.


title: Path Problems in Geographic Information Systems

abstract:
Path problems are among the most widely studied problems in graph theory. Unlike in well-studied conventional static shortest path problems, the characteristics of underlying networks may change over time in many real-world applications. An efficient solution to the Shortest Path problem, should therefore take the dynamics of the underlying graph into consideration. In this thesis, we study a dynamic version of the Shortest Path Problem in which travel times on links of the underlying graph change over time, and present improved and easily implemented exact and approximation algorithms.
With
theoretical improvements in time-dependent shortest path computation and technical advancements in the provision of real-time traffic data, many travelers these days use and rely on navigation systems and time-dependent shortest path computation in their everyday lives. This may, however, compromise users' privacy since untrusted Location Based Services (LBS) are able to use inference attacks to gain access to sensitive information about users, such as their driving habits, health conditions they may have, their sexual orientation, or details about their lifestyle. In this dissertation,
we propose a heuristic algorithm that protects the privacy of users who submit frequent location based queries to a Location Based Service. Although, shortest paths are preferred in most applications related to navigation and transportation, they can easily be inferred and regenerated, and should therefore be avoided in applications where user security is paramount. For example, a traveling VIP is more concerned about the security of her path rather than its length. We study the traveling VIP problem in which the goal is to randomly select a path from k candidate source-destination paths.
When links are shared between many paths security is compromised and security guards may have to be placed on such links. The number of shared edges, then, should be minimized to reduce the costs associated with security guards who must be assigned to each shared link. We show that this problem is hard to approximate, and propose an approximation algorithm
which has been experimentally evaluated on various networks.


title: The Concept of Schizophrenia in Ottawa:  Perspectives of Psychiatry, the Public, and Patients 1883-2013

abstract: The way in which we have thought about mental disability has changed over time. This work examines conceptions of one particular disorder, schizophrenia, originally known as dementia praecox, from the perspectives of psychiatry, the public, and patients, from 1883 to 2013. It compares shifts in the way the public conceptualizes schizophrenia, using Ottawa as a case example, to developments within Canadian psychiatry, notably the standardization of diagnosis. It then looks at the personal accounts of individuals who experience schizophrenia in order to reconsider public and psychiatric representations of the disorder. The general purpose of this research is to call attention to the various ways in which schizophrenia has been conceptualized historically, based on different types of information and by different actors, in order to challenge contemporary representations of mental disability that consider a mental disorder to be equivalent to individual identity.


title: Making Politics and Creating Spaces:  A Study of the 2012 Québec Student Strikes

abstract:
This work uses historical, theoretical, and experiential lenses to examine the Québec
Student Strikes of 2012. The first section of the work offers a condensed history of the evolution
of post-secondary education (PSE) in Québec followed by a parallel review of student activism.
The second chapter focuses on different conceptions of political and public space. By focusing
on public space and the university as a changing spatial milieu and space of politics, I underline
the multiplicity and polyvalence of space, and the ways in which people like students act upon
and within spaces
to renegotiate and reclaim them. The final chapter presents conversations from
seven interviews with individuals who participated in the strike actions followed by theoretical
reflections that relate back to the central themes of citizenship, representation, and political
action and autonomy.


title: Iterating Meaning – An Analysis of the Digital Conversation Surrounding the Journey of Nishiyuu

abstract:
This project examines the mechanisms of digital communications media by engaging with theoretical understandings of the nature of digital utterances as applied to the conversation surrounding the ‘Journey of Nishiyuu’ walk from early 2013. By analyzing and comparing the development of the conversation across platforms, the analysis provides a perspective as to how diverse digital locations are used in unique ways at different times and with fluctuating volumes at various stages in the conversation. This provides insight into the effect of user adaptation on digital communication. The project
will also show how the configuration of the conversation can be transformed by the media through which the user accesses information and the platform on which the conversation unfolds. By examining the structure of the conversation, it illustrates how digital communication is inherently iterative; requiring pragmatic, and emphatic iteration and the strategy of segmentation.


title: Evaluation of Compressibility, Anisotropy and At-rest Lateral Earth Pressure in Champlain Sea Clays

abstract:
An experimental study is undertaken to evaluate the characteristics of the sensitive Champlain Sea clay. Undisturbed samples obtained from a site in Ottawa were trimmed along both the vertical and horizontal orientations for consolidation and simple shear tests. The results of the one-dimensional consolidation tests indicate that the vertical orientation has greater preconsolidation pressures than the horizontal orientation. The ratio of the horizontal to vertical preconsolidation pressure varies from 0.71 to 0.95.  Consolidation along the horizontal orientation leads to higher (1% to 23%)
compression indices than those in the vertical orientation. The values of the coefficients of consolidation and permeability in the horizontal orientation are found to be larger than those in the vertical orientation, and the ratios of both coefficients of consolidation and permeability in the horizontal orientation to that in the vertical orientation evolve as the effective vertical stress increases.


title: Biodegradable Architecture:  Finite Construction for Endless Futures

abstract:
The now defunct National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) states that a brownfield is a large piece of land that has become contaminated, and subsequently abandoned, due to past commercial and industrial activities.  While brownfields have a dubious legacy, a transformative potential exists from a social, economic, and—most of all—environmental perspective.
Utilizing Paul Stamet’s exploration of myco-technologies which has demonstrated new ways of rehabilitating degraded landscapes—along with ideas of biomimicry, this thesis seeks to study the interrelationship
between architecture, landscape, and decay. The concept of biodegradable when applied to architecture becomes a manifestation of this interrelationship.
Biodegradable architecture suggests simultaneously both construction and demolition. The project explores the idea of a permanent building that produces impermanent and ephemeral architecture. These ideas manifest themselves as a factory for biodegradable architecture, where mycobricks are manufactured.


title: Exploring Teacher Perceptions of a Textbook-Free ASL Curriculum at a Canadian University: A Qualitative Combined Methods Study

abstract:
Despite its growing popularity, American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language (ASL/ASL) is an under-researched and under-developed field of study. The present thesis begins to address this dearth through an exploration of four ASL teachers’ perceptions of the textbook-free ASL program in which they teach. This study draws on previous literature that highlights the centrality of teachers within curriculum processes and considers the complexities inherent to the ASL context. The results of this qualitative combined methods study suggest that the teacher-participants perceive themselves as
sharing in a common curricular vision promoting ASL proficiency and awareness of Deaf culture despite it being tacit and unwritten.


title: Dissociating Implicit and Explicit Category Learning Systems using Confidence Reports

abstract:
Dual-process models of categorization (e.g., COVIS) have relied mostly on double-dissociation paradigms and participants' classification accuracy to highlight differences between explicit and implicit modes of learning. In these models, the implicit system uses procedural learning in the absence of attention whereas the explicit system uses hypothesis-testing requiring attentional resources. These accounts assume that the explicit system dominates early stages of learning whereas the implicit system dominates later stages of learning. Thus, differences in response accuracy over the
course of learning and between category structures are taken as evidence for explicit and implicit processes. In four experiments, I will consider the utility of using subjective measures of performance (i.e., confidence reports) to continuously sample from participants’ explicit representation of the category structure while also examining changes in these reports over the course of training. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with stimuli using the randomization technique using either a rule-based or information-integration category structure and provided with trial-to-trial and
block feedback. Block feedback was removed in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, feedback was delayed to interfere with the implicit learning system while leaving the explicit learning system unaffected. Finally, in Experiment 4, the performance asymptote was lowered to increase overconfidence in participants’ performance. Importantly, I observed systematic biases in the relationship between accuracy and confidence reports across training. Confidence reports were more closely associated with explicit representations, produce significant overconfidence for rule-based category structures but only
marginally overconfidence for information-integration category structures. These results have important implications for both models of categorization and confidence reports.


title: Income-Generating Products for People with Disabilities in the Majority World: Understanding the Complexities of  Participatory Design in Rural Uganda

abstract:
This thesis looks at income-generating devices for people with disabilities in Uganda.  The project involved having solar-charging kiosks manufactured in Kasese, Uganda.  These devices were given to people by a local organization so that they could start a business charging mobile phones to generate income.  The author looked at multiple research areas, such as if they could generate an adequate income, whether it created independence or dependency, if the design was appropriate for the context, and understanding the complexities of “design with the majority” projects.  The research was
conducted using questionnaires, observations and in-person interviews during field-work in Uganda.  The findings show that these types of projects are complex, and that more case-studies would help to shed light on this emerging field.  The researcher discovered many insights, including: people would use it to light their homes; people had differing abilities to generate income; and recipients needed multiple revenue sources.


title: Using Muonic X Rays to Interrogate Special Nuclear Materials

abstract:
This thesis reports the use and analysis of gamma-ray spectrometry to identify several peaks from a muon beam hitting a target of 238U. Two candidates for muonic x rays occurring from fission products were also identified. A 2p-1s mu x ray from 98Mo at 2738.0+-0.7 keV with a yield of 0.06+-0.02 x ray transitions per muon stop. A 2p-1s mu x ray from 133Cs at 3900.2+-1.7 keV with a yield of 0.04+-0.04 x ray transitions per muon stop.
The equivalent dose from muons was calculated using a simulation of the Bethe-Bloch equation. An upper limit of 1.4e11 muons was calculated as the maximum
number of muon stops before hitting an equivalent dose limit of 1 mSv in a human phantom.
A minimum detectable transition rate of 4.29e5 x ray transitions per second was calculated for the strongest mu 238U x ray.


title: Beneath the "Thin Veneer of Civilization":  Evolution, Masculinity, and Race in the Early Twentieth Century United States

abstract:
By the turn of the twentieth century, many Anglo-Saxon American men of a middle class background began to define their identities by appealing to evolutionary thought. Homo erectus nordicus, they believed, was the greatest physical and mental specimen among the races of the world. Yet this narrative of evolutionary greatness through a history of Spencerian struggle in the natural world, defined by popular and scientific literature, seemed at odds with modern civilization. Their grand narrative of natural history stressed the need to engage with nature to embrace one’s authentic identity as a
man, in contrast to the degenerative influences of civilization—which had been compromised, they believed, by the unnatural, growing cultural authority of women and immigrants. I argue that these evolutionary narratives of white masculinity portrayed the white male body as powerful yet vulnerable to degeneracy, setting an alarmist agenda for reclaiming a conservative cultural identity for the nation.


title: Experimental Investigation of Visible Diffraction in Tilted Fibre Bragg Gratings

abstract:
We present an analysis on the visible diffraction patterns of Tilted Fiber Bragg Gratings (TFBG), with applications to blue-laser fiber sensors.  On the basis of our current understanding of a visible diffraction phenomenon called sidetapping, or outtapping, we compare theoretical predictions with experimental results.
In order to compare theory to experiment we obtain empirical observations of diffraction angles.  A 1550nm-TFBG is connected to a Coherent Spectrum-70C laser source and measurements are taken for several wavelengths including red (647.1nm), yellow (568.2nm), green (514.5nm),
blue (488.0nm) and violet (457.9nm) to show that our results are in definite agreement with theory.  There are other variables that affect and govern this diffraction behaviour so a comprehensive parameter study is used to relate the input variables to output variables.  Output variables are power and longitudinal angles of each radiating diffraction order.


title: EU - Russia Energy Relations and Political - Economic Ideology

abstract:
Russia and the European Union cannot reach a conclusive agreement on major issues in energy relations. Russian and EU economic policymaking from the 1970s onwards developed mutually incompatible ideological foundations. The EU adopted a neoliberal market framework with some social market characteristics, while Russia functions along economic nationalist ideas. These ideological influences informed the development of energy policy in each respective party. The EU insists that Russia deal with the internal European Energy market through a free market framework, while Russia prefers to do
business with the EU without modifying its economic model in the energy industry. This has resulted in disagreements in negotiations for Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, the Energy Charter Treaty, and the Third Energy Package. Both Russia and the EU would benefit from cooperation due to energy interdependence, but each party needs to recognize and acknowledge their counterparts’ interests for achievable long-term progress.


title: Fire Risk Analysis of Combustible and Non-combustible Mid-rise Residential Buildings using CUrisk

abstract:
At Carleton University in Canada, a quantitative fire risk analysis computer model CUrisk is being developed to evaluate the fire risk levels in mid-rise buildings. By using this model, this thesis evaluated the fire safety in multi-storey buildings with different building construction materials, heights and floor areas.
The CUrisk Evacuation submodel is compared with other methods including the Pathfinder models and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) analytical calculations. Case studies were performed by applying these models to different building design conditions and the
results were compared.
CUrisk was applied to evaluate the fire risk level in buildings of non-combustible frame and combustible frame. Fire development in concrete, unprotected CLT, protected CLT and light-frame timber were compared and the performance of different fire protection systems was evaluated. Finally, the fire risks in buildings with higher building height or larger building area were compared.


title: Robust Ambient Multisensor Signal Fusion Towards Clinical Data Analytics

abstract:
As ambient systems proliferate, there is an increased need for data-level fusion methods that reflect the challenges of unknown environments, non-deterministic signal behaviours, and movement artifact. Cushioning between the sensor and bed occupant decreases signal to noise power and signal availability, while non-linear signals can masquerade as delayed and reversed signals. The main contributions of this the- sis are to study how these challenges affect extraction of a breathing signal from bed-based sensors and to propose more robust fusion techniques.
New trend analysis methods
effectively corrected polarity reversals, increasing the number of good quality signals by 9% and reducing mean respiratory rate error by 24%. To fuse these signals, selection combining, weighted summation, and blind source separation methods were innovated and compared. None performed best all of the time; some were generally good with some weaknesses, while others had specialized strengths. Contextual ensemble fusion selected the best fusion method in degraded conditions in 55% of records, compared to 36% for the top individual fusion method, providing clinical applications with more
reliable data. While sleep medicine is an important application, ambient monitoring is also suited to cognitive medicine and palliative care. Developed methods were applied to monitor patients in palliative care, marking the first long-term, continuous monitoring of this population. Breathing patterns observed in the last weeks of life included Cheyne-Stokes respiration and tachypnea, while breathing variability was associated with survival time.


title: Fluid Bodies: Masculinity in Emo Music

abstract:
Emo is a genre of music that typically involves male performers, which evolved out of the punk and hardcore movements in Washington DC during the mid-80s. In this thesis I conflate hegemonic and subordinate masculinities into a single subject position, which I call synergistic masculinity. In doing so, I use emo to explicate this vis-à-vis an intertextual analysis that explores the dominant themes in 1) lyrics; 2) the sites of vocal production (head, throat, chest) in conjunction with pitch and timbre; 3) the extensional and intensional intervallic relationships between notes and chords, and
the use of dynamics in the musical syntax; 4) the use of public and private spaces, as well as the performative masculine body in music video. I posit that masculine emo performers dissolve these hierarchically organized masculinities, which allows for a deeper musical meaning and the extramusical signification of masculinity.


title: Developing an Innovation Engine for a Web Startup

abstract:
The globalization of market is progressing steadily as barriers to the free flow of goods, services, and capital declined since the end of World War II.  This trend results in substantial increase in foreign competitions, consequently it increases the needs for new ventures to better differentiate by other basis than cost and quality.  The thesis at hand used a constructive methodology to design an improved entrepreneurial framework. The core contribution of the research is the conceptual development through real-world application of the project space model, an element of the Innovation
Engine described by Bailetti (2013).  The research also tries to provide answers to the following research questions: i) is the innovation engine model suitable for a web-based new ventures, ii) how can the project community component of the innovation engine be adopted by new ventures, iii) what processes new ventures can used to better cope with opportunity discovery?


title: The Noise of Silence: How Suppression of Free Expression Threatens the Fragile Peace in Post-Genocide Rwanda

abstract:
The argument is made here that Rwanda faces the serious risk of another violent conflict if the flaws of the transition are not corrected to bring about a toleration of dissent and criticism on the part of government. It also entails the removal of the country’s media instruments from the control and manipulation of the state.
Correcting the flaws of the transitional process should begin with the international community shedding the guilt of its failure to prevent the genocide, demanding the regime’s commitment to greater respect for fundamental civil and political rights (including
freedom of expression and press freedom) in return for economic support. It also requires an end to the rather condescending notion that Rwandan’s deserve nothing better than an authoritarian government which secures peace and keeps the economy on the right footing by use of, among other things, draconian laws against the media and free expression.


title: Motion Estimation and Registration of B-Mode Ultrasound Images for Improved Visualisation

abstract:
This thesis presents a method for motion tracking between ultrasound images that originated from moving an ultrasound probe.  The motion tracking is done in two steps:  In the first step, a modified block-matching search is used to track the motion between frames by tracking the speckle and the tissues in the images.  From the modified block-matching approach, the global motion vector can be seen.   In the second step, areas with motion vectors in the direction of the probes’ motion are put through another motion tracking algorithm called phase correlation.  Doing so will improve the overall
motion estimation.  Phase correlation provides a smoother vector field compared to block-matching.  At the end, an extended field-of-view frame will be obtained.


title: Effects of Watershed Land Use on The Seasonal Energy Dynamics, Condition, and Parasite Communities of Stream Fish

abstract:
While it has been demonstrated that degradation negatively impacts resident fish, the physiological mechanisms behind this trend are not well understood. Applying scientific techniques to increase our understanding of how habitat influences individual physiology and how that, in turn, influences fish population dynamics is becoming an important approach to environmental monitoring. In Chapter 2, I quantify how watershed land use influences the over winter energy reserves and health of a small stream fish and demonstrate that land use influences these metrics differently for females and males
of the model species. In Chapter 3, I investigate the parasite communities of juvenile fish residing in impacted streams to identify potential bioindicators of habitat – and fish – health. These data are the first of their kind for both species, and are also the first time these techniques are used to address these unique research questions.


title: Individual Differences Influence the Degree of Source Expertise Bias in Syllogistic Reasoning

abstract:
Similar to Copeland, Gunawan, and Bies-Hernandez (2011), the present study investigated the influence of source expertise characteristics on people’s susceptibility to bias in syllogistic reasoning. Each syllogistic conclusion was presented by one of two sources: an expert or a non-expert. In the present experiment, the medium of presenting the source information was also altered to include visual images of the sources. Furthermore, individual differences measures were included in order to investigate whether working memory capacity and certain thinking styles (i.e., reflective or actively
open-minded thinking) are related to the source expertise bias. In contrast to the source expertise bias that Copeland et al. (2011) had found among their full sample of participants, only a specific sub-sample of the participants in the present experiment exhibited the bias. Namely, people who scored low on the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005) showed the source expertise bias, whereas those with high scores did not.


title: Educating the Jury: Mental Illness and Criminal Responsibility in the Canadian Courtroom

abstract:
This study explored juror stigma towards defendants with mental illness (MI), and examined the impact of education on juror decision-making in Not Criminally Responsible on account of Mental Disorder (NCRMD) cases in Canada. Four-hundred and eighty-six participants received two forms of education (MI or diabetes, and NCRMD or duress), read an NCRMD trial transcript in which the defendant’s MI was manipulated, and provided a verdict (NCRMD or guilty), defendant perceptions, MI attitudes, and NCRMD attitudes. Continuous analyses revealed that MI and NCRMD education did not have a combined
effect on defendant perceptions, MI stigma, or decision-making in NCRMD cases. Path analysis revealed that MI type was directly and indirectly related to guilt certainty via MI attitudes and defendant perceptions. However, NCRMD attitudes did not have an effect on verdicts. Results imply that MI attitudes are deeply ingrained in social and cultural norms and are not amenable to change despite education.


title: Women in Slashers Then and Now: Survival, Trauma, and the Diminishing Power of the Close-Up

abstract:
This thesis will reconsider the role of the Final Girl in slasher cinema throughout time, disproving popular notions of her as either a teenage boy incarnate or a triumphant heroine. Instead, an examination of her facial close-ups will make evident that despite her ability to survive, the formal structure of the film emphasizes her ultimate destruction, positioning her instead as a traumatized survivor, specifically of male violence. My research will therefore use close film analysis and feminist film theory to ask how the close-ups develop character as well as narrative, what significance
they hold in relation to the structure of the slasher, and most importantly, how they both speak to and challenge gender stereotypes. My methodology will include the comparative analysis of older films to their recent remakes.


title: Effects of Blast Loading on Seismically Detailed Reinforced Concrete Columns

abstract:
Terrorist attacks in recent decades have led to growing concerns about the performance of buildings designed by well-established conventional design methods under blast loading. The concerns arise from the response of buildings and fatalities in popular terrorist attacks such as the Alfred P. Murrah Building explosion. It has become imperative to investigate the performance of load-bearing members to blast loading.
The effect of seismic detailing of RC columns on their blast-resistance was investigated using the LS-DYNA program.
The blast resistance of the seismically-detailed columns
increased, especially to close-in blast loading. The effects of axial load ratios (ALRs) were investigated in the numerical study. Increasing ALRs increased the blast-resistance of the columns. However, at high ALRs, the columns suffered compressive concrete crushing leading to higher lateral displacements and instability. At higher scaled distances, increasing ALRs resulted in reduced lateral displacements; with the seismically-detailed columns offering little advantage over the conventionally-detailed columns.


title: Performing History Offstage:  The Benefits of Using Theatre to Present History at the Canadian War Museum

abstract:
This thesis aims to evaluate the Canadian War Museum’s (CWM) most frequent use of theatrical interpretation Group Orientations (G.O.s). G.O.s are performed by CWM Program Interpreters (P.I.). Interviews with CWM staff are used to trace the history of theatre programming at the CWM since 2005. The observation of G.O. performances, the scripts and the interaction between P.I.s and visitors demonstrate the pedagogical advantages of the programme. This thesis also discusses the future of the programme by considering the implications of a virtual G.O. This work presents a unique contribution to
the field of public history as very few national museums use theatre as an introduction to their exhibition’s interpretive themes. The investigation of the CWM’s G.O.s, offers a case study on the benefits of theatre programming in national museums. This will provide a valuable example for other national museums thinking about incorporating theatre in their interpretive planning.


title: Corrosion Performance of Candidate Materials for Canadian Gen IV Supercritical Water Cooled Reactor

abstract:
To successfully develop advanced nuclear power plants, such as the Canadian supercritical water cooled reactors (SCWR), a large body of knowledge in material’s performance under extreme conditions is needed. This thesis entails the corrosion characterization of four candidate materials, AISI 304, AISI 310, IN 625 and A-286, and subsequent microstructure evaluation of the materials after being exposed to supercritical (SCW), subcritical water (SubCW), and superheated steam for up to 3000 hours.
Results show that AISI 304 and A-286 have poor corrosion performance, in terms of the amount of
surface oxide formation and weight change, under all conditions due to low chromium content. AISI 310 and IN 625, with higher chromium content, exhibit better corrosion resistance in SCW and SubCW, but in the superheated steam condition some weight loss has been found.  Microstructural analysis suggests that both alloy composition and test condition (pressure) contribute to the surface scale formation and stability.


title: Vapour Deposition: Thermal Characterization and Application of Metal Oxide Thin Films

abstract:
Three precursors of group 11 metals, gold(I) 1,3-diisopropyl-imidazolidin-2-ylidene hexamethyldisilazide, gold(I) tert-butyl-imino-2,2-dimethylpyrrolidinate, silver(I) tertbutyl-imino-2,2-dimethylpyrrolidinate were subjected to solution based NMR thermolysis studies.  Rates of decomposition and order of reactivity were gathered.
Two novel antimony compounds, trimethyl phosphine antimony (III) chloride and bistrimethyl phosphine antimony (III) chloride were subjected to thermal characterization by TGA and CVD experiments in attempt to produce antimony or antimony oxide films.  Few
experiments gave varying depositions but reproducible coatings were not achieved.
Protective coatings of alumina and bilayers of alumina and titania were deposited on bronze test tokens as well as on numismatic silver coins.  Multiple tests examined the efficacy of such films against physical and chemical wear.  Silver coins were compared to a traditional lacquer coating.   The ALD coatings on tokens provided improved wear and chemical protection vs. unprotected coins.  Final numismatic coatings of alumina gave greatest adhesion, but did reveal small areas of chemical penetration.


title: Exploring the Social Experiences of Adults on the Autism Spectrum: Views on Friendships, Dating and Partnerships

abstract:
Persons with autism were surveyed regarding their experiences and opinions of relationships, their day to day lived experiences and their social aspirations. The survey provided an opportunity for respondents to share both negative and positive experiences, as well as possible insights into how their communities could be more inclusive and provide better social opportunities. This thesis utilizes original quantitative and qualitative research and takes a structural/critical perspective of disability. Methodology involves participatory action techniques as questions were formulated from
discussions with volunteers with autism/Asperger syndrome. While there is a considerable amount of research from the perspective of families, service providers and educators about persons with autism spectrum disorders, there is a startling lack of research involving the personal accounts of individuals with autism regarding their own social experiences. This study attempts to address this disparity by giving adults with autism a voice.


title: Crowdsourcing and Participatory Mechanisms in Crowdfunded Design Projects

abstract:
This research investigates the convergence of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding practices to affect co-design activities between project founders and user-investors through reward-based crowdfunding. To that end, it examines successful design-centered projects on Kickstarter in order to firstly establish five ‘participatory mechanisms’ for defining and discussing participatory practice in the crowdfunding context, and subsequently quantifying the prevalence of such mechanisms and correlating them to other project variables. We find that projects’ context and proposed outcomes are significantly
related to participation, which was most often observed in the Technology and Games categories, and in software and hardware projects. We find the implementation of participatory mechanisms to be tied to project scope, in terms of fundraising goals, funds raised, number of backers, and communication between founders and the crowd.


title: Exploring Karen Experiences of Urban Agriculture in Ottawa: The Importance of Place-making, Agriculture and Cultural Identity

abstract:
Situated within the field of political ecology broadly, theorizing about social nature more specifically, and drawing on qualitative methods including PhotoVoice and participant observation, this thesis is an extended case study exploring the complex issues and processes pertaining to urban agriculture as practiced by Karen refugees in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  The Karen – many of whom are skilled farmers – first came to Canada (from the Thai/Burmese border) under refugee status in 2006, after enduring decades of persecution and ongoing acts of ethnic cleansing.  More specifically, this paper
will address the following question: What socio-cultural, economic, political and ecological benefits do practices of urban agriculture foster amongst Karen refugees in Ottawa?  The results describe the transformative power of people-place relationships and highlight the need for more inclusive, just and democratic land-use management policies that are cognizant of the diverse skills and (in some cases) agrarian roots of immigrant sub-populations.


title: The development and Comparison of Quantitative PCR Assays and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assays as Rapid Detection Methods for Specific Foliar Endophytes

abstract:
Certain species of foliar fungal endophytes found in conifer trees produce anti-insect compounds. Seedlings inoculated with these toxigenic endophytes have increased tolerance to the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana. To facilitate the detection of the fungi in tree samples, polyclonal assays were developed for the pyrenophorol-producing endophytes Lophodermium nitens CBS127939, Lophodermium nitens CBS127941 and Lophodermium cf. piceae CBS127942. LOQs were found to be 50 ng of mycelium for each assay. qPCR assays were developed  for the rugulosin-producing endophyte Phialocephala
scopiformis DAOM229536 and pyrenophorol-producing endophytes Lophodermium nitens CBS127939 and Lophodermium nitens CBS127941 based on the ITS region of fungal ribosomal DNA targeting genetic polymorphisms unique to those strains. LOQs were found to be 100 ng, 10 ng and 10 ng of mycelium/gram of needle, respectively. The qPCR method was found to be more sensitive, detecting the endophytes in 48% of tree samples. The polyclonal assay detected endophytes in 7% of samples.


title: Exploring Thumb Input on Flexible Tablets

abstract: Flexible displays offer new interaction techniques such as bend gestures, but little work has been done to support touch input. Touch is the most common input method for handheld devices. We explore the potential of touch input using the thumb of the holding hand on flexible displays. We conducted two studies to evaluate tapping and swiping with thumb input, and compared the interactions between a flexible and a rigid tablet. Our result suggests that participants can perform tapping and swiping using thumb input similarly for both rigidities. This indicates that thumb input can offer the benefits of touch input in flexible displays. Our results also suggest that users prefer holding the display on the side or on the bottom corner over the bottom center. We present design guidelines to use thumb input on flexible devices, and provide three use case scenarios to visualize our design guidelines.


title: Cascading Failure in Critical Infrastructure: An Actor-Network Analysis of the 1998 Ice Storm in Ottawa

abstract:
A 1998 ice storm initiated a cascading failure across several of Ottawa’s critical infrastructure systems, leaving +50,000 people without electricity for prolonged periods as emergency managers failed to grasp the extent of the disaster and initiate a successful coordinated response. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) along with risk and vulnerability principles is used to unpack the complexities contributing to this disaster and explore how Ontario’s 2008 Provincial Emergency Response Plan (PERP) might have altered outcomes.  ANT revealed electrical and transportation failures were initially
isolated but days three through five in the Storm were characterized by failures transcending the resilience of several infrastructure systems as well as emergency programs, resulting in system-wide, cascading severe disruptions and failures to all infrastructure systems other than sanitation and water.  This thesis concludes conditions conducive to a cascading failure persist and that PERP (2008) inadequately prevents the reoccurrence of cascading infrastructure failure during a prolonged ice storm.


title: From Prohibition to Decriminalization: Interrogating the Emerging International Paradigm Shift in the War on Drugs Discourse

abstract:
This project aims to interrogate the emerging counter-hegemonic war on drug discourse through a neo-Gramscian lens. Given that the estimated $2.5 trillion-dollar effort (Wood, 2011) has done little to stifle either drug consumption or production over the course of the past 40 years, a consensus is beginning to emerge surrounding the need for a policy change, especially in the countries of Latin America. While drug use was once something to be dealt with solely by the juridical and military branches of government, governments in the Americas increasingly understand drug use as a public health
issue, including, although to a lesser extent, the United States. This thesis will focus specifically on the Bolivian and Guatemalan cases to ask if we are seeing the creation of a new hegemony in the War on Drugs context.


title: Marching to a Different Drum: The Casserole Protests of the Quebec Student Movement, 2011-2012

abstract:
During the Québec student demonstrations and strike of 2011-2012, the most notorious method of protest used was the rhythmic banging of kitchen utensils, known as les manifestations casseroles (les manifs casseroles). Les manifs casseroles are situated within a larger tradition of collective musical protest by their relationships to other protest movements and to similar protest practices, including the French and French-Canadian tradition of charivari and the Latin American tradition of cacerolazos. The rhythms and sounds of les manifs casseroles created a powerful collective action frame
for the student movement, and offered a unique sonic method of expressing dissent, laying claim to public space, and turning unengaged bystanders into artists/activists.


title: High Resolution Paleolimnology of Lakes in the Athabasca Oil Sands Mining Region, Alberta, Canada

abstract: The Athabasca oil sands (AOS) represent one of Canada’s most economically important natural resources. Understanding the origin, fate and long-term impact of these industrial operations requires geoscientific knowledge of the potential environmental impacts. To quantify current impact an understanding of long-term environmental drivers is required. Here we utilize arcellaceans (testate lobose amoebae) to identify the peleoecologic history of the area, against which ecological stress associated with anthropogenic activities may be defined. Surface sediment samples were collected from 63 lakes forming a radius encompassing potential airborne and waterborne contaminate pathways. Total mercury (THg) in lakes close to the AOS were similar to values recorded in lakes farthest away and to values recorded in lakes surrounding coal fire plants in central Alberta. All lakes except one had THg concentrations lower than current CCME guidelines. The spatial extent of arcellacean ecosystem stress did not correlate with THg concentrations. To understand the long-term history of the AOS area a core (ALE) spanning 1,870 cal yr BP - present was used to assess how climate anomalies influence lake hydrology and ecology. Deconvolution of the grain size spectra indicates that populations are likely responding to overarching environmental controls. The coarser bedload material was interpreted to reflect high discharge events that occur during spring melts. A ratio of the coarse:fine fractions demonstrates abrupt oscillations of both high and low frequency and indicates that variation in spring melt volume and velocity was likely forced by climate change. Further investigation of the grain size data showed that the hydrologic character of ALE has responded to known ocean-atmosphere cycles, particularly the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and that these cycles are underwent abrupt expression shifts every ca. 270-370 years. We attribute the expression shift to movement of the jet stream, which controls air mass distribution at this locality. An investigation of the ecological character of ALE from 1875 AD - present reveals that the arcellacean community was also influenced by climate anomalies and that decreased nutrient input, which is a function of precipitation during the El Niño phase of ENSO, applied stress to benthic ecology in these boreal lakes.


title: Bend Passwords: Using Gestures to Authenticate on Flexible Devices

abstract:
Upcoming mobile devices will have flexible displays, allowing us to explore new forms of user authentication. On flexible displays, users interact with the device by deforming the surface of the display through bending. In this thesis, we present a new type of user authentication that uses bend gestures as its input modality.
We ran three user studies to evaluate the usability and security of our new authentication scheme and compared it to PINs on a mobile phone. Our first two studies evaluated the creation and memorability of bend passwords and PINs. The third study looked at the
security problem of shoulder-surfing passwords on mobile devices.
Our results show that bend passwords are a promising authentication mechanism for flexible display devices. We also provide eight design recommendations for implementing bend passwords on flexible display devices, based on our results.


title: Environmental Effects on the Operation of Triple-Junction Flexible Photovoltaic Panels

abstract:
This thesis contains a complete description of a solar photovoltaic experiment to monitor and predict the performance of solar technology in the temperate climate in Ontario. An experiment was designed and built to monitor weather data and determine the operating characteristics of the modules using high-resolution equipment. The data gathered were used in the one-diode model to predict the power produced by the modules. A large sample of data was not achievable due to the experiment taking place during the winter where snow and a low solar angle heavily reduced the module performance.
Results were nevertheless obtained for a Uni-Solar PVL-144 thin-film triple junction amorphous silicon module, and the power predicted was within 25% of what was measured. The module efficiency was found to be 7%-8% and the ideal tilt angle for Ottawa to be 50 degrees +/- 10 degrees. The findings presented in this thesis form a basis for


title: Investigation of Factors that Limit Efficacy of Ultraviolet Disinfection in Water and Wastewater Treatment

abstract:
This research has been undertaken to contribute to our understanding of factors that limit and hinder ultraviolet (UV) disinfection efficacy, specifically the presence of flocs, and self-aggregation, regrowth and reactivation of microorganisms (Chapters 1 and 2). Chapter 4 aimed to provide an in-depth understanding of the effect of particles and flocs on UV disinfection by using a well-defined and well-controlled synthetic system that simulates the bioflocculation process. Results indicated that particle size had significant effects on Escherichia coli (E. coli) inactivation at high UV doses,
and larger particles protected bacteria more than smaller particles. Moreover, the size of the constituent particles of flocs did not make a significant difference on inactivation levels. In Chapter 5, the bioflocculation process was monitored with a dynamic particle analyzer (DPA 4100) and UV inactivation data were assessed in light of the floc characteristics determined with the particle analyzer. Less circular and more porous flocs formed when the degree of bioflocculation was increased and larger flocs had a more heterogeneous structure. Irradiation experiments confirmed that floc size
alone cannot explain how much E. coli are protected from UV light in the presence of particles and flocs. In Chapter 6, the DPA 4100 and an inverted microscope (Nikon Eclipse Ti) were used to examine the extent of UV-induced self-aggregation of E. coli after exposure to low-pressure and medium-pressure UV irradiation. All low-pressure UV doses tested yielded significant increases in particle size following UV exposure, indicating self-aggregation. In the medium-pressure UV experiments, only a dose of 80 mJ/cm2 had a significant impact on the formation of aggregates upon UV exposure. In
Chapter 7, the regrowth issue was addressed by studying regrowth in the absence of reactivation. Results showed that percent regrowth of E. coli and indigenous wastewater bacteria were higher after UV disinfection at 40 mJ/cm2 than at 15 mJ/cm2. Regrowth of E. coli was observed even in phosphate-buffered saline with no added nutrients indicating that lysis of UV-damaged cells may provide nutrients for surviving bacteria. Overall, this research underscores the importance of addressing the aforementioned issues for improving UV disinfection performance and better protecting public health.


title: Newsgathering In the Harper Era: Adaptation and the Perpetuation of Sameness

abstract:
At the heart of political journalism is the gathering of information about the affairs of government, necessary for developing public opinion and keeping the government accountable. Under the current Conservative government mandate, political journalists have experienced heightened controls over information, rendering access to primary sources limited. In turn these journalists have developed a reliance on secondary sources to collect information for their stories. The barriers set in place by the government and its use of PR have created a distance between journalists and their sources of
vital information, as well as furthered the perpetuation of sameness within the news industry. Political journalists operate under the expectation that they will practice newsgathering and engage in the tug-of-war over information with their sources while upholding journalistic values. Currently, however, their primary source is increasingly dominating this dynamic, impeding journalists’ ability to fulfill such expectations and continue to keep government accountable.


title: Isolation and Characterization of Bioactive Metabolites from Endophytic Fungi of Pinus Strobus

abstract:
Fungal foliar endophytes of Pinus strobus (Eastern white pine) were collected from different sites across south-eastern New Brunswick, Canada for screening of bioactive metabolite compounds. Metabolite isolation and characterization of three bioactive strains yielded the dibenzofuran derivative porric acid C (1), one butyrolactone derivative (2), one glucopyranosol derivative (3), one furfuryl ether derivative (4), four dihydrobenzofurans derivatives (5-8), one xanthene derivative (9), and one polyoxygenated cyclohexene (10). Two of the dihydrobenzofurans compounds are new (7 and 8), while
the other two (5 and 6) are reported here for the first time as natural products. Compound 4 is known as a starting material in the synthesis of fullerenes. The remaining compounds (2, 3, 9, and 10) are also new. Compounds (1, 2, and 5-9) displayed antibacterial activity against Bacillus subtilis. Additionally, the known antifungal compound griseofulvin was quantified by LC-MS/MS.