19614 research outputs found
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Implementing the UNDRIP into the Province of British Columbia: The Impact of BC’s Declaration Act on Buck-Passing and Injustices of Misframing
Full text linkThis thesis will examine the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) within British Columbia. I argue that BC’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act has the potential to shift the opportunity structures that the division of powers and section 35 of the Constitution have created, allowing settler governments to pass the buck and misframe injustices. Institutional practices of buck-passing and misframing have historically led to the province completely ignoring or imposing settler colonial frames of justice as means of addressing injustices of Indigenous sovereignty and land dispossession. Buck-passing is a government tactic that leverages the ambiguities within the division of powers between federal and provincial governments so as to blame some other level of government in attempt to escape moral blameworthiness as well as the responsibility for rectifying an injustice. For its part, misframing is a problem that involves misconstruing the nature of an injustice so as to block or obscure possible political actors, arenas, or processes that could play important roles in remedying it. Misframing can be both strategic or systemic. Strategic misframing occurs when an injustice is intentionally misconstrued in order to somehow weaken perceptions of its extent or severity or generally to somehow remove from public consideration or view other actors, institutions, venues, or processes that should in fact be considered as possible political places or spaces in which to resolve the injustice. In contrast, systemic misframing is a result of the normal working of existing social or political structures, so that actors, institutions, venues, or processes that should in fact be considered as possible political places or spaces in which to resolve the injustice are somehow invisibilized or kept from view. The UNDRIP provides Indigenous peoples with a potential tool to challenge institutional norms and policies that have historically undermined Indigenous rights to sovereignty and self-determination, and in turn to tackle the problems of passing the buck and misframing injustices within the province of BC. However, this potential will only be actualized if the FPIC principles are utilized to develop consultation mechanisms created by Indigenous peoples. Further, it is imperative that the government of British Columbia actually works with Indigenous peoples to ensure that Indigenous peoples and their legal orders and perspectives are incorporated into all aspects of the policy development of BC’s Declaration Act.Graduat
Cerebral endothelial function and pulsatile metaboreflex hemodynamics in adults
No full textFew studies measuring cerebral blood flow (CBF) during metabolic afferent stimulation consider the mechanistic implications of endothelial function and compliance of vessels supplying the brain. The central question of this thesis study was whether pulsatile cerebral hemodynamic damping (DFi) plays a role in how the afferent muscle metaboreflex, a component of the exercise pressor reflex (EPR), impacts brain hemodynamics during exercise. Using ultrasound imaging techniques on 28 subjects (11 biological females, 17 biological males; 23.6±4.2 years of age; BMI of 24.0±3.2 kg/m^2), measures of DFi from the extracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) to the intracranial middle cerebral artery (MCA) were assessed during post-exercise muscle ischemia (PEMI) and transient hypercapnia (9% CO2). Endothelial function was indexed by the %Δ in ICA vessel diameter (ICAd) during transient hypercapnia using a Douglas bag technique. DFi did not change during a paced-breathing metaboreflex stimulation; stimulation of the blood pressure-dependent metaboreflex with a 30% maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) dynamic handgrip protocol that preceded post-exercise muscle ischemia (PEMI) was effective (p = 0.005). A 6.77±3.97% increase in ICAd was observed during transient hypercapnia (p = 0.021). Cerebral hemodynamic buffering is maintained in healthy young male and female adults. Transient hypercapnia via Douglas bag provides an easy stimulus to increase PetCO2 and shear stress to provoke ICA vasodilation. While no sex differences were observed in this study, future research could benefit from an increased sampling power to explore the impact of sex hormone levels. Additionally, considering healthy individuals appear to buffer cerebral hemodynamics, further mechanistic understanding is required to assess how aging and chronic disease-state populations lead to an impaired DFi.Graduate2025-07-2
Catalyzing Local Climate Action: Can Regional Collaboration Support Transformative Change?
Full text linkThe urgent threat of climate change demands an unprecedented scale of transformation, calling for new ways of thinking about how institutions can address the challenge. A multiplicity of responses at various scales have emerged, including the burgeoning role of local governments, which have a key role to play in effective climate policy and implementation, yet also face barriers that can constrain climate action. As well as lack of capacity and resources, political will, and institutional challenges, local governments are constrained by geographical scales and tiers of governance, as climate action and impacts frequently extend beyond jurisdictional boundaries. This study sought to address a critical gap in knowledge related to regionally coordinated climate action in Canada, integrating insights from an interdisciplinary set of literature and building upon O’Brien’s (2018) three spheres of transformation framework in order to draw out the potential for regional collaboration to support transformative climate action. Specifically, the study aimed to identify the primary barriers to advancing climate action in the Vancouver Island and Coastal region of British Columbia from the perspective of local government staff and elected officials, and to explore whether and how these barriers could be more effectively navigated through regional scale collaboration. Data were collected through 15 semi-structured interviews and thematically analyzed to identify climate action barriers and enablers.
The study revealed key barriers in three thematic categories – resistance, capacity, and governance, with barriers related to resistance and governance being more deeply entrenched but also offering greater opportunities to leverage transformational change. Mapping these barriers onto O’Brien’s three spheres suggests a need to move beyond behavioural changes and technologies to target deeper leverage points related to systems, structures, and the personal sphere in order to achieve the transformational change required to respond to climate change. The study illuminated potential actions at various scales of governance to address resistance, capacity, and governance challenges. Collaboration, a significant enabler at the regional scale, offers the opportunity to address barriers to climate action through supporting horizontal and vertical alignment on policy and communications, sharing resources, building capacity and using existing capacity more effectively, supporting personal and collective resilience, and advocating collectively for needs. These findings indicate strong potential for catalyzing action through greater coordination at multiple governance scales, including the regional scale, providing hope that a collaborative approach might help to unlock necessary transformative change.Graduat
Revising Building Design Practices and Policies: A Response to the BC Housing Crisis
Full text linkThe BC housing crisis is an incredibly complex issue with multiple groups desperate for solutions. The purpose of this research project is to propose a tool that would simplify our current building development framework. The tool is an open-source interactive mapping database (ArcGIS) which contextualizes regional variables pertaining to: Housing Price, Climatic Risk by region that pose a threat to buildings, and Site Sustainability Suitability. The database is meant to be integrated into current decision making to conceptualize the goals and constraints of new buildings and retrofits.
This presentation and research project makes the argument that a comprehensive mapping database would help compile effective solutions, and directly related a fundamental issue to a reachable solution in a coherent way. The presentation and research project will go into further detail as to why a mapping database would be helpful, who it would affect, who would ideally deliver this service, and how it should be developed.Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA)UndergraduateReviewe
Public Sector Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Reporting in Canada
Full text linkReporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors began as a strategy for companies in the private sector to attract capital and meet investor demand for ESG data. In recent years, it has also been adopted by some governments as they interact with financial markets for their capital needs. Across Canada, several governments have gained awareness of leading ESG practices, frameworks, and standards from international organizations. This thesis explores why, how and the extent to which Canadian governments engage in ESG activities through a comparative content analysis of their ESG reporting. Informed by the literature on policy learning and transfer, the thesis discusses and analyzes the pathways through which ESG reporting guidance is issued, diffused among a wide policy network, and adopted by the public sector. As is shown, some governments are creating unique, jurisdictional frameworks for reporting on their own ESG performance (i.e., Toronto, Alberta, British Columbia). Other governments are integrating some aspect of ESG issues in their financial or investment reporting (i.e., Vancouver, Montreal, Mississauga, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary). A couple governments are applying ESG considerations to economic agreements and other instruments (i.e., Northwest Territories, Government of Canada). Overall, governments in Canada are monitoring the development of international ESG reporting standards, along with their stakeholders’ expectations regarding these standards, as they work to provide more transparent and higher quality ESG data that is comparable with their peers.Graduat
Perception of L3 French Vowel Contrasts by L1 Mandarin-L2 English Learners: A Contrastive Hierarchy Perspective
Full text linkThis study looks at the L2 and L3 perception of Quebec French (QF) tense and lax vowels [y, ʏ] and /e, ɛ/ and rounded vowels /y-u/ and /oe-ɔ/. Inspired by the Linguistic proximity model (LPM) (Westergaard, 2021), I predict that the trilingual participants will outperform the bilingual participants as the trilingual can transfer phonological features from both the L1 and the L2 to acquire L3 contrasts.
The contrastive hierarchy theory, a representational and learning model proposed by Dresher (2009) is adopted to explain the sources of potential transfer in phonological acquisition. According to Dresher, phoneme inventories are best understood in relation to contrastive feature specifications, assigned in language-specific hierarchies. In a language-specific hierarchy, features are assigned to divide the inventory into smaller binary subsets until each phoneme is uniquely specified. The selection of the features is determined by examining the phonological processes in a given language (Dresher, 2009).
The present study provides a comparison of the perceptual performance of four groups: (1) L1 Mandarin; L2 English; L3 QF (n=22), (2) L1 English; L2 QF (n=20) and (3) QF natives (NS) (n=20), (4) naïve learners (n=20). Two learner groups are at the upper-intermediate level of QF proficiency that was measured by self-rated background questionnaire (based on instructional hours and course level). The Mandarin speakers’ L2 English proficiency level was measured by IELTS (average 7.0). An ABX discrimination task (with 1500msISI) was conducted by embedding [y, ʏ] and /e, ɛ/ and /y-u/ and /oe-ɔ/ in CVC syllables ([bVb], [dVt], [sVz]) in a total of 120 trials.
The primary findings of the study demonstrate that 1) The L3 QF learners are able to transfer [±front] > [±round] from L1 Mandarin and [±tense] from L2 English to successfully parse L3 QF tense and lax vowels [y, ʏ] and /e, ɛ/. 2) The L3 QF learners, transferring [±front] > [±round] from L1 Mandarin, are able to successfully parse /y-u/ and /oe-ɔ/. 3) Lack of [±round] in the English hierarchy and the transfer of L1 phonetic roundedness cue make the L2 QF learners misparse the rounded vowels and tense and lax vowels [y, ʏ]. 4) The contrastive hierarchy theory is able to predict the ease and difficulty of acquiring these contrasts based on different types of restructuring actions. 5) The present findings are in support of the LPM (Westergaard, 2021) and the Scalpel model (Slabakova, 2017) and reinforce the importance of developing a model in L3 phonology that takes contrastive hierarchy theory and restructuring principles into consideration.Graduat
Energy management in modern buildings based on demand prediction and machine learning—A review
Full text linkIncreasing building energy consumption has led to environmental and economic issues. Energy demand prediction (DP) aims to reduce energy use. Machine learning (ML) methods have been used to improve building energy consumption, but not all have performed well in terms of accuracy and efficiency. In this paper, these methods are examined and evaluated for modern building (MB) DP.FacultyReviewe
The Metaverse
No full textThe emergence of the Metaverse presents a powerful shift in human socialization. In a hypothetical fully digital society, how individuals choose to represent themselves, interact with others, and go about their daily lives will be confined to the dimensions of the internet. However, as the technologies that encompass the Metaverse become more sophisticated, human resilience is pushed to its boundaries, and there will be vast alterations to human behaviour. This research project delves into the intricacy of social relations within the Metaverse, which presents a myriad of theoretical challenges as humans attempt to navigate an ever-changing digital landscape.
This project draws upon an analysis of the literature and applies a lens of 'affordances' to analyze the hypothetical social behaviours and opinions of the users who will engage with the Metaverse once it is realized. Key areas of analysis include the possible benefits and risks of a fully digital society, as well as concerns regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion within the Metaverse. By providing insight on these core areas, this research delineates a comprehensive guide to assist in the development of the Metaverse.Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA)UndergraduateReviewe
“But I Did Not Ask These Questions”: The Soviet Katyn Lie and the Anglo-American Press during the Second World War
Full text linkThis thesis explores English-language newspaper reporting on the Katyn massacre during the Second World War. While previous scholars have taken up the subject of Anglo-American complicity in suppressing the Katyn Massacre, there has not been a full examination of the Soviet propaganda put forwards to the Western press during WWII. Firstly, this thesis reexamines the origins of the Katyn massacre in 1940 by highlighting the influence of Soviet foreign policy towards Poland on the Soviet leadership’s decision to undertake the massacre. Secondly, this thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of what historians have termed the “Katyn Lie” as it appeared in the Anglo-American press, and the manner in which the Soviets actively utilized the Western press to spread the Katyn Lie abroad. This thesis demonstrates that Soviet-Polish relations formed the overarching link between the origins of the Katyn massacre and the Soviet falsification of the massacre after 1943. This thesis casts further light on the Anglo-American complicity in silencing the truth about the Katyn massacre, along with further demonstrating the importance the Soviets attached to the international perception of it.Graduat
Long-term Functionality of Vacuum Insulation Panels (VIP) Subjected to Simulated Random Vibrations
Full text linkDue to globalization and post-pandemic developments, the shipping industry's search for energy-efficient containers in the cold chain sector has increased significantly. In this scenario, the vacuum insulation panel (VIP), a thermal superinsulation, shows significant potential to be used in the construction of highly energy-efficient shipping containers. However, a concern is a lack of information about the long-term performance of VIPs due to truck vibrations during transit.
This paper investigates this gap by presenting results from a laboratory test program involving unaged and aged VIP specimens (300 mm x 300 mm x 25 mm) with two types of core materials, fumed silica and fiberglass. The VIP specimens were subjected to random vibrations, reflecting actual in-service vibrations of a truck. Vibration tests were conducted using a Long Stroke Vibration Exciter (ball bearing type) for the low-frequency range following the procedure outlined in the ASTM Standards D4169 and D4827. Aged specimens underwent ’heat’ (70 ±1°C and 5 ±3 % RH) aging in an oven and ‘heat & vapour’ (70 ±1°C and 95 ±3 % RH) aging in a specialized environment chamber for up to 120 days before going through random vibration tests. The change of thermal conductivity of each specimen was tracked during the random vibration test at regular intervals using a heat-flow-meter, following the procedure in the ASTM Standard C518. The results from the thermal conductivity test indicate that, in general, fumed silica VIPs have a lower degradation rate than fiberglass VIPs when subjected to simulated random vibration tests.
The findings of this study will have meaningful implications for the use of VIPs in energy-efficient refrigerated shipping containers. By identifying the impact of truck vibrations on the performance of VIPs, researchers and engineers can develop more effective methods to mitigate these effects and improve the overall integrity of the VIP-insulated highly energy-efficient refrigerated shipping containers. Overall, this study provides insights into challenges and opportunities associated with using VIPs in the cold chain industry and opens new avenues for further research and development in this field.Graduat