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Technology adoption, management practices and vaccine use in Canadian cow-calf herds
No full textAn understanding of current technology adoption and management practices including vaccination protocols used by Canadian cow-calf herds is important to understand current practices, identify areas for improvement, and direct extension programs. Adoption of technologies and practices that increase reproductive performance and increase production efficiency is important for the long-term economic sustainability of the beef industry. Vaccines are one of the most important tools available to cow-calf producers to control disease within and across herds, and to reduce economic losses caused by disease burden across all beef production sectors. To date, regional surveys have attempted to collect this information, but the lack of uniform data prevents the comparison of herds in different regions of the country. The aim of this thesis is to address this gap in technology adoption and record keeping data, and determine, the vaccine protocols employed in cow-calf herds across the country.
In Chapter 2, a mail survey was used to gather data regarding the different technologies and record keeping practices utilized by Canadian cow-calf producers. Survey data was returned from 131 herds across 8 provinces (91 western and 40 eastern herds). The most widely adopted practices were the maintenance of individual female production records, feed testing, and the use of an on-farm animal weigh scale. Differences between eastern and western Canadian herds were identified. Western producers were more likely to use nutritional technologies including the use of a nutritionist, feed testing and growth promoting implants in calves, while eastern producers were more likely to use artificial insemination. Large herd size (>300 cows) was associated with adoption of data collection technologies and recommended practices including use of weigh scales, RFID tag scanners, utilizing a defined breeding season, and feed testing. Similar to past reports, paper systems were the main record keeping medium. Producers who maintained production records utilized them for culling decisions and replacement heifer selection. While adoption of many types of technology has increased across Canada, there is still room for uptake up technologies that allow for more efficient animal management in all provinces.
Chapter 3 utilized the same producer survey as Chapter 2. Vaccination protocols used in Canadian cow-calf herds were investigated as a critical herd and animal disease management tool. Viral bovine respiratory disease pathogens: Infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), Parainfluenza virus type 3 (PI3), and Bovine viral diarrhea virus Types 1 and 2 (BVDV) were the most common vaccines administered to all cattle, followed by clostridial vaccines. Use of clostridial vaccines was more likely in western herds than eastern herds. For the purpose of this study, suckling calves are defined as all calves prior to weaning. Vaccination of suckling calves against IBR/BRSV/PI3 (92%) and BVDV (78%) was common, however only 47% and 39% of calves were administered a booster for these targets respectively, prior to weaning. Calves administered a viral respiratory vaccine prior to 3 months of age were more commonly administered a second vaccine of that target prior to weaning compared to those first vaccinated after 3 months of age. Use of intranasal vaccines in neonatal calves has increased since previous reports and vaccine use across Canada generally follow veterinarian core vaccine recommendations. While vaccine use has increased across Canada, most notably in calves prior to weaning, areas for improvement remain. Vaccine protocols including number of doses and timing of delivery vary widely within and across provinces, regardless of product used and label instructions
An overview of the substance use landscape in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo
A History of Resistance and Compliance: Japanese-Canadian Health, Healthcare, and Healthcare Providers During Internment (1942-1949)
No full textIn the early months of 1942, the Canadian government orchestrated the mass internment
of the entire Japanese-Canadian community. The federal government justified this decision for
reasons of national security and out of concern for Japanese-Canadian welfare. Within weeks,
over 22,000 people of Japanese descent living mostly along the coast of British Columbia were
uprooted and confined in inadequate living spaces in the BC interior. Despite official
government statements, Japanese-Canadians’ health and wellbeing suffered. Members of the
Japanese-Canadian community with healthcare skills were expected to provide care for their
fellow internees. Health and healthcare shifted in the community. But Japanese Canadians
brought with them decades of community knowledge about circumventing racist healthcare
spaces and policies in Canada. In doing so, they changed internment healthcare spaces and rural
and remote medicine in interior British Columbian towns.
My research considers some of the ways internment spaces affected the general health of
the community, the reality of which forced the government of Canada to make healthcare an
aspect of internment policy planning. Each chapter demonstrates, through a unique and under-examined source base, that healthcare was an important aspect of Japanese-Canadian internment.
From examinations of personal photographs to oral history interviews to public history displays
this dissertation takes a socio-cultural approach to historical analysis and shows how healthcare
considerations challenge our understandings about Japanese-Canadian internment. In doing so,
this work demonstrates that Japanese-Canadian internment is an essential part of understanding
the history of healthcare in Canada.
I argue that internees experienced further racialization, segregation, and discrimination
within healthcare spaces as both healthcare professionals and patients. But they navigated these
restrictions with community and professional knowledge established before the 1940s. I also
explain that while health was not initially a central concern of internment policymakers, it
became a reality of internment that internees had to face. Good health of internees quickly
became a campaigning tool which the government made ready use of. Further, my research
demonstrates that the labour of these racialized healthcare providers, who were also internees,
continued into the post-internment period and re-shaped rural healthcare in select regions of
British Columbi
Microwave-infrared/vacuum drying, roasting, and convective air drying of germinated lentils to modify physicochemical and functional properties
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo
REVERTING TO GREATNESS: WHITE -AMERICAN TRAUMA AND THE OCCLUSION OF MUSLIMS IN THE POST-9/11 ‘GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL’
Get PDFDon DeLillo, in his December 2001 Harper’s article, “In the Ruins of the Future: Reflections on Terror and Loss in the Shadow of September,” urged fellow American writers to create “the counternarrative” that would take back control of culture from terrorists who threatened it. DeLillo’s call for nation-rebuilding cultural production hearkens back to John William de Forest’s original post-Civil War coinage of the term and concept of the “Great American Novel”. Examining four seminal post-9/11 novels through the conceptual framework of a “new” Great American Novel oeuvre, I demonstrate a concerted effort by the authors to address what I have termed the “Muslim Question”. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005), DeLillo’s own Falling Man (2007), Amy Waldman’s The Submission (2011), and John Updike’s Terrorist (2006) all feature traumatized white Americans creating a variety of mechanisms with which to mitigate the trauma of 9/11 as it resurges at even the thought of Muslims existing in America after 9/11. By examining the mechanisms of repression, appropriation, adversarial othering, and enforced secularization, I critically analyze the iterations of “solutions” while also demonstrating the abandonment of American ideals by the traumatized white Americans. The spectral, fluid, and slippery notion of the so-called Great American Novel looms in the background as a tradition within which each of these novels operates; and it provides the lens necessary to see literary concerns and depictions shifting in America after the terrorist attack. While the original concept of the Great American Novel featured novels with multifaceted explorations of the American Dream, the renewed interest in creating nation-rebuilding texts is threatening to stagnate and congeal particularly around examining the relative success of the mechanisms of occluding Muslims and Islam within and from the United States
Building on a Legacy : Working with users to revitalize the CRHM hydrological model
Get PDFA computer scientist's personal account of collaboratively migrating the CRHM hydrological modelling tool.Canada First Research Excellence FundNon-Peer ReviewedA computer scientist's personal account of the challenges involved in collaboratively migrating the CRHM hydrological modelling tool
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF OPEN-SWITCH FAULTS FOR INTERFACING INVERTERS IN MICROGRIDS USING OPAL-RT REAL-TIME SIMULATOR TEST BENCH
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo
DEVELOPMENT OF A PASSIVE SAMPLING STRATEGY FOR MONITORING OF ORGANIC POLLUTANTS AND THEIR IMPACTS IN AQUATIC SYSTEMS
Get PDFAnthropogenic organic compounds are constantly released into the freshwater environment, demanding a better knowledge of the chemical status of our Earth’s surface waters and sediments. Conventional water quality monitoring only provides “snapshots” of information in time and space. Passive sampling has been proposed as an in-situ time integrative sampling technique to offer better monitoring of the chemical status of our environment. In this thesis, the diffusive gradient in thin films (DGT) technique is introduced because the DGT passive sampler allows for assessing time-weighted average concentrations of various organic contaminants with minimal hydrodynamic influence.
This thesis first reviewed the available literature on the potential limitations of DGT samplers. This review summarized the current configurations of the DGT samplers for organics, storage stability of analytes in DGT samplers, kinetic desorption of organic contaminants in sediments and at the interface of water and sediment, and combinations of DGT samplers and bioassays. This review identified two critical gaps: (i) there are only limited studies for desorption kinetics of organic contaminants, especially for hydrophilic to moderately hydrophobic compounds, at the interface of water and sediment; and (ii) there are no studies so far for predicting bioavailability in aquatic biota by in situ DGT technique. Based on these gaps, the objectives of this thesis are to (1) develop DGT samplers that can be applied for the monitoring of organic contaminants across the water-sediment interface in the field with an efficient time; (2) describe the kinetic equilibrium of compounds between sediments and overlying water using a dynamic model; and (3) use DGT-derived concentrations to predict bioaccumulation of organic contaminants by invertebrates through in-situ and laboratory-controlled experiments.
First, this research conducted a 30-day laboratory simulation experiment, where DGT samplers were tested for adsorption performance and then were deployed in sediments spiked with nine model antipsychotic compounds, i.e., amitriptyline, bupropion, carbamazepine, citalopram, clozapine, duloxetine, fluoxetine, lamotrigine, and venlafaxine. A dynamic model, DGT-induced fluxes in soils and sediments (DIFS), was used to reveal the dynamic resupply processes of organic contaminants from the solid phase to the aqueous phase. This experiment showed that antipsychotics could be continuously depleted from the sediment aqueous phase and captured by the DGT binding gel. The highest resupply ability was observed for lamotrigine and carbamazepine. The adsorption process took control of the spiked sediments under laboratory conditions during incubation time.
Second, DGT devices were in situ deployed at the sedimentwater interface and in sediments, downstream of the Saskatoon Wastewater Treatment Plant, on the South Saskatchewan River. Apart from the DIFS model, a dynamic fraction transfer model was also developed to consider the real status of organic contaminants in sediments during field deployment. The field experiment revealed that positive fluxes of antipsychotics were found from sediment to overlying water and the desorption process was dominant within a 15 cm depth of sediments. The results from the three-fraction transfer model can be auxiliary to further explain dynamic desorption kinetics calculated by the DIFS model.
Third, another 30-day laboratory-controlled experiment, where the benthic oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus was exposed to freshwater sediments spiked with nine antipsychotic compounds, and DGT samplers were synchronously deployed, was conducted to develop a numerical model for passive bioaccumulation using DGT-derived concentrations. Passive uptake of antipsychotic compounds by the benthic oligochaetes could be successfully modeled by inputting the diffusion-induced concentrations measured by DGT samplers in water and sediments. Fast desorption to the labile fraction of analytes in a short response time accounted for the process of uptake by oligochaetes.
Fourth, DGT devices were in situ deployed at a wastewater-impacted site for 20 days to develop a predictive bioaccumulation model by comparison between the modeled concentration using DGT-derived concentrations in water and those in resident benthic invertebrates, specifically crayfish (Faxonius virilis). The results showed that targeted antipsychotics could be constantly resupplied to the interstitial water and absorbed by crayfish. DGT techniques with a steady-state uptake model in the current study for crayfish could provide a close prediction compared to the measured concentrations for some compounds while it still needs further developments to predict different organic compounds. This thesis has the potential to transform the DGT technique to efficiently monitor emerging contaminants and evaluate their bioavailability in the aquatic cycle, and help protect the safety of our water resources for human and environmental health
Next-Generation Radiation Spectroscopy Tools
No full textServa Energy's presentation for 11ICI on our innovations in gamma-ray spectroscopy, custom hardware and software for high-speed (250MS/s) data acquisition, gamma-ray detector signal processing and integration with publicly available data on isotope reactions, decay chains and gamma spectra
Comparison of Variety Performance Trials and Farm Level Yield Gains of Wheat Varieties Adopted in Saskatchewan
No full textWheat producers in Saskatchewan rely on information from variety performance trials to make informed decisions about new variety adoption, considering factors such as yield potential, weed, pest, and disease resistance, and climatic adaptability. These variety performance trials, however, are conducted under controlled conditions that may not adequately reflect real-world farming or heterogeneity in yield across risk zones. Limited research has compared relative yield gains observed in variety performance trials to on-farm experiences. In this study, we use fixed-effects panel data analysis to compare on-farm relative yield gains to variety performance trials’ relative yield gains. In addition, we examine if any heterogeneity exists in terms of producer relative yield gains across risk zones in the province. Our findings indicate significant differences in relative yield gains between variety performance trials and on-farm results using the F-test. Finally, using the Log-likelihood Ratio test we find that the performance of different wheat varieties varies significantly across risk zones in Saskatchewan. Producers must consider the unique characteristics of their region, market conditions, and risk factors when selecting and adopting varieties. Thus, they should consider multiple factors beyond yield potential when selecting varieties, be encouraged to continue conducting their own on-farm trials. Policymakers should consider using both on-farm and field trial data in the variety performance trial. They can also develop a mechanism to allow producers to upload the results of their on-farm experiments, include producers as partners in variety evaluation and if possible, extend the coverage of performance trials across risk zones and multiple diverse agro-climatic areas