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Cultural Identity within Pottery: A Holistic Approach to Transitional Pottery from Border Zones
Get PDFThis research studied the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age (1550-586 BCE) (LBA-IA) pottery at the site of Tel Burna, Israel. Tel Burna is a border site situated between the Israelites, Canaanites, and Philistines, which gives it a unique picture into cultural changes over time. The primary objective of this research was to make clear the markers of cultural identity present within the pottery of the Canaanites and Israelites, over a period of cultural change and ethnogenesis. Through the use of geochemical analyses, information about pottery manufacture can be gained (i.e. construction techniques, firing temperatures, and clay sources). Changes in pottery manufacture may reflect changes in cultural identity, which can be used to understand the transition between the Canaanite and Israelite cultures. The secondary objective of this research was to determine whether surface contamination is present on the pottery sherds studied by analyzing the exterior of the sherds and the interior separately. It has often been assumed that after deposition the exterior of ancient pottery becomes contaminated and thus is unusable for geochemical analyses. Preparing powdered ceramic samples is a labour-intensive process which involves removal and discard of the exterior surface of pottery sherds, followed by hand powdering using an agate mortar, and finally sieving the sample. This process could be streamlined, saving time and effort, if removal and discard of the exterior was not required.
This research used the geochemical techniques of X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) as they are complimentary and allow for the collection of a wide array of data, including mineral and elemental composition. There were no trends identified in the XRD and XRF data. The consistency of the data indicates a lack of substantial change in manufacturing techniques from the LBA to the IA. This supports the theory that the development of Israelite culture in the Iron Age was a slow development from within the preceding indigenous Canaanite culture. Additionally, no consistent change was noted between the interior and exterior of each sherd, demonstrating minimal difference between the interior and exterior of the samples. A limited difference between the interior and exterior potentially indicates it is not necessary to remove and discard the exterior of a sample, which will allow for streamlining ceramic powdered sample preparation protocol. Both conclusions need to be confirmed with a larger sample set and the use of more techniques to analyze the samples, which will be explored in future work
Pre-Calculus 30 Unit Plan - Fantastic Functions!
No full textNon-Peer ReviewedA Pre-Calculus 30 Unit Plan that teachers and teacher candidates can use in their classrooms. This Unit Plan covers the learning outcomes P30.6, P30.7, and P30.8 in the Pre-Calculus 30 2012 Saskatchewan Curriculum
"Avengers Assemble!": The Implications of Assembling an Edition of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Textual Scholarship
Get PDFIn the last couple of decades, the word “social” has become increasingly ubiquitous not just in everyday life with the advent of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter but also in the field of textual scholarship with the increased attention paid to the construction of “social editions.” Concomitantly, in the film world, the format of the cinematic universe is becoming one of the main modes of storytelling with unprecedented success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). As film critics like Graeme McMillan claim that “whatever lightning Marvel captured in its onscreen bottle is not a trick that’s easily replicable,” tackling the cinematic universe might seem to be a daunting task for screenwriters and filmmakers. For textual scholars who have been struggling to create a truly “social” edition, however, the MCU’s success only presents an opportunity to achieve their goal and exponentially expand the field. Taking the MCU as a case study, this paper explores the implications of approaching a cinematic universe as a subject for textual editing and argues that because of its massively collaborative, transmedial, and inherently commercial nature as a work, the MCU invites reconsiderations of current practices in textual scholarship. In conversation with other attempts at social editing, this paper demonstrates that the collaboration and transmediality behind the MCU not only allows it to fit but also encourages the expansion of current definitions of the text. As well, it argues that attempting to edit the MCU keeps the creation of a truly “social” edition in the realm of possibility exactly because of its commerciality. Ultimately, in theorizing what an edition of the MCU would look like, this paper asserts that editing the MCU would also require a reconsideration of what “scholarly editing” means, both in terms of what constitutes “scholarly” work and what the duties of editors and editions are, and where and when they should look for meaning
THE CASES OF PUBLIC SECTOR BUDGETING FOR K-12 EDUCATION IN CANADA AND WELLBEING BUDGETING IN NEW ZEALAND: INCREMENTAL TO PERFORMANCE-BASED BUDGETING
Get PDFBudgeting is a critical activity for any government. The budgeting approach selected impacts what outcome is achieved. Three common approaches present in practice and in the literature are incremental, performance-based, and productivity budgeting. In addition to the budgeting approach used, one must also consider the complex relationships and inherent tensions between budget actors.
The first paper of my dissertation centres on how budgeting for public K-12 education is done in 12 out of 13 Canadian provinces and territories. Education was selected as it is a ministry that is comparable from province to territory. By interviewing 25 budget actors, I found that most jurisdictions construct their budgets using incremental approaches. A drawback to incremental budgeting—the status quo—is that a potential $6.0 billion in productivity gains at the combined provincial/territorial and federal levels could be realized.
To determine how a jurisdiction adopts and implements a novel budgeting approach, I then focused on the adoption and implementation of New Zealand’s wellbeing budgets in the second and third papers of my research. I chose to study this budgeting approach as it was the first Western example of wellbeing as a clear budgeting outcome. Here, in interviews with 22 former and current budget actors, I found that cooperation between and amongst groups of budget actors over time has facilitated a wellbeing approach. They were able to reach a consensus on the importance of efficiency and budget performance. Because of the political aspect of national budgeting, internal and external influences, and New Zealand’s culture, it was natural that the country’s legislation for the performance-based budgeting approach progressed into something innovative.
Lastly, I identified successes and challenges in the implementation of this new approach. A theme that emerged was the presence of constructive disagreements and debate. This benefited the implementation of this budgeting approach because it meant that there was both a change in system operations and a change in target behaviour or conditions. Most budget actors indicated that a shift to long-term thinking and better quantification of which investments lead to which wellbeing outcomes is still required for full realization of this budgeting approach.
Cultural shifts in the public sector that orient analysis, decision-making, and funding allocations to non-economic outcomes engender a holistic approach to budgeting and public policy. It is important to acknowledge that this budgeting approach requires time, resources, and likely, legislation to achieve. A budget reform must be framed as an iterative process that requires all perspectives from the top to the bottom to be fully successful. Fostering a dynamic, youthful, and academic group of budget actors means that with a performance-based or productivity foundation to public sector budgeting, new ideas can materialize, be experimented with, and improved upon to achieve wellbeing outcomes
A Novel Embedded Feature Selection Framework for Probabilistic Load Forecasting With Sparse Data via Bayesian Inference
Get PDFWith the modernization of power industry over recent decades, diverse smart technologies have been introduced to the power systems. Such transition has brought in a significant level of variability and uncertainty to the networks, resulting in less predictable electricity demand. In this regard, load forecasting stands in the breach and is even more challenging. Urgent needs have been raised from different sections, especially for probabilistic analysis for industrial applications. Hence, attentions have been shifted from point load forecasting to probabilistic load forecasting (PLF) in recent years.
This research proposes a novel embedded feature selection method for PLF to deal with sparse features and thus to improve PLF performance. Firstly, the proposed method employs quantile regression to connect the predictor variables and each quantile of the distribution of the load. Thereafter, an embedded feature selection structure is incorporated to identify and select subsets of input features by introducing an inclusion indicator variable for each feature. Then, Bayesian inference is applied to the model with a sparseness favoring prior endowed over the inclusion indicator variables. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach is adopted to sample the parameters from the posterior. Finally, the samples are used to approximate the posterior distribution, which is achieved by using discrete formulas applied to these samples to approximate the integrals of interest. The proposed approach allows each quantile of the distribution of the dependent load to be affected by different sets of features, and also allows all features to take a chance to show their impact on the load. Consequently, this methodology leads to the improved estimation of more complex predictive densities. The proposed framework has been successfully applied to a linear model, the quantile linear regression, and been extended to improve the performance of a nonlinear model.
Three case studies have been designed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The first case study performed on an open dataset validates that the proposed feature selection technique can improve the performance of PLF based on quantile linear regression and outperforms the selected comparable benchmarks. This case study does not consider any recency effect. The second case study further examines the impact of recency effect using another open dataset which contains historical load and weather records of 10 different regions. The third case study explores the potential of extending the application of the proposed framework for nonlinear models. In this case study, the proposed method is used as a wrapper approach and applied to a nonlinear model. The simulation results show that the proposed method has the best overall performance among all the tested methods with and without considering recency effect, and it could slightly improve the performance of other models when applied as a wrapper approach
Use of the “ba” construction in Heritage Chinese speakers and L2 speakers of Chinese
Get PDFABSTRACT
This thesis analyses the differences in using the ba construction in heritage Chinese speak-ers and L2 speakers of Chinese. The study compares the use and knowledge of the ba con-struction by L1 native speakers, heritage speakers (HL), and L2 learners of Mandarin Chi-nese. Heritage language speakers are exposed to minority languages from birth, and they are exposed to a majority language later in life (Polinsky & Kagan, 2007), which then causes the L2 to become the dominant language. Other L2 learners tend to retain their L1 as a dom-inant language. The ba construction is an active sentence in which the particle ba is used before the predicate verb to introduce the subject and dispose of the object. The focus is on the result or change to the object instead of the event in a regular active sentence. These meaning changes are accompanied by a change in word order from the regular SVO to SOV. Language transfer, linguistic environment, age, and age of language acquisition were con-sidered factors influencing the use and judgment of the ba construction.
In this study, 88 participants were included: 25 in the HL group, 24 in the L2 group, and 39 in the CN group. Support for this proposal comes from an online experiment that investigat-ed three groups and the usage of ba sentences. The participants of the three speaker groups were evaluated based on a grammatical judgment task, a multiple-choice test, and a con-trolled production task in the GORILLA Experiment Builder.
The results show that HL and L2 speakers differ from L1 speakers in the use of ba sentences, while HL and L1 speakers differ from L2 speakers in the judgement of ba sentences. Com-pared to L1 speakers, HL and L2 speakers used simple complements in ba sentences more frequently. The results also demonstrated that the age of second language acquisition had the most significant influence on the usage of HL and L2 in ba sentences, followed by the dominant language, dominant language environment and lastly the age of the participants. These results support the importance of language dominance and age of acquisition in the usage patterns for heritage and L2 speakers
Refractory nerve agent induced seizures: the role of GABA(A) receptors and oxidative stress
Get PDFIntroduction: Organophosphate nerve agents act as potent acetylcholinesterase inhibitors which can cause refractory seizure activity in exposed casualties. The mechanism of these refractory seizures is poorly understood, thus creating a treatment challenge when selecting the appropriate anticonvulsant and neuroprotection, as survivors tend to show neurological deficits. Oxidative stress may play a role in neuropathology of nerve agent exposures, specifically via free radical production by NADPH oxidases (NOX2 and NOX4) and saturation of endogenous antioxidant mechanisms. Furthermore, previous research indicates GABA(A) receptor trafficking has a role in refractory seizure activity and that GABA neurotransmission may be modulated by oxidative stress. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a well characterized, effective, and widely available antioxidant compound. The first aim of this study assessed the role of oxidative stress in nerve agent, specifically soman, induced brain injury and its effect on GABA(A) receptor distribution. The second aim of this study was to investigate the effect of antioxidant NAC on seizure activity, oxidative markers and GABA(A) receptor levels.
Methods: Rats were pre-treated with HI-6 and atropine to ensure survival 30 minutes prior to an 85 µg/kg soman injection or saline control, end points for brain dissection and collection were at 3, 24, and 48 hours. The second objective of this study used the same methods with the addition of 100 mg/kg and 300 mg/kg NAC pre-treatment 60 minutes prior to exposure. Western blot was used to analyze hippocampus and cortex samples prepared as homogenates and synaptoneurosomes to assess GABA(A)α1 subunit levels, NOX changes, and brain injury biomarkers. Confocal imaging was used to qualitatively assess gliosis and brain damage in the hippocampus CA1 and dentate gyrus regions. Biochemical assays were used to quantify oxidative stress and antioxidant function.
Results: Rats exhibited either convulsive or nonconvulsive seizures induced by soman. GABA(A)α1 subunit densities decreased at 3 hours in synaptoneurosomes but not in homogenates, indicating decreased GABA(A) receptor availability on post-synaptic membranes. At 24 and 48 hours, GABA(A)α1 returned to control levels in the hippocampus and cortex. Oxidative stress parameters do not change significantly in any of the six biochemical assays used and Western blot brain injury markers were not significantly elevated. Gliosis appeared as early as 3 hours in severe seizure brains and persisted until at least 48 hours. NAC preserves GABA(A)α1 expression at the post-synaptic density at 100 mg/kg doses but does not reduce seizure severity.
Conclusions: Oxidative stress is insignificant to neurological damage observed at the end points analyzed. This study provides the first in vivo evidence that GABA(A) receptor internalization occurs following soman exposure independently of oxidative stress and supports the hypothesis for the role of GABA(A) receptor downregulation as an important mechanism for refractory nerve agent induced seizures. Although oxidative stress was not observed in exposed animals, the administration of NAC prevented the downregulation of synaptic GABA(A) receptors which could provide an improvement of seizure arrest using diazepam. Further studies determining the adjunct efficacy of NAC and the mechanism of action will have to be conducted
Windmapper: An Efficient Wind Downscaling Method for Hydrological Models
No full textGlobal Water Future programme funded by the Canada First Excellence Fund, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Canada Research Chairs Program, NSERCPeer ReviewedEstimates of near-surface wind speed and direction are key meteorological components for predicting many surface hydrometeorological processes that influence critical aspects of hydrological and biological systems. However, observations of near-surface wind are typically spatially sparse. The use of these sparse wind fields to force distributed models, such as hydrological models, is greatly complicated in complex terrain, such as mountain headwaters basins. In these regions, wind flows are heavily impacted by overlapping influences of terrain at different scales. This can have a great impact on calculations of evapotranspiration, snowmelt, and blowing snow transport and sublimation. The use of high-resolution atmospheric models allows for numerical weather prediction (NWP) model outputs to be dynamically downscaled. However, the computation burden for large spatial extents and long periods of time often precludes their use. Here, a wind-library approach is presented to aid in downscaling NWP outputs and terrain-correcting spatially interpolated observations. This approach preserves important spatial characteristics of the flow field at a fraction of the computational costs of even the simplest high-resolution atmospheric models. This approach improves on previous implementations by: scaling to large spatial extents O(1M km2); approximating lee-side effects; and fully automating the creation of the wind library. Overall, this approach was shown to have a third quartile RMSE of 1.8 m ⋅ s−1 and a third quartile RMSE of 58.2° versus a standalone diagnostic windflow model. The wind velocity estimates versus observations were better than existing empirical terrain-based estimates and computational savings were approximately 100-fold versus the diagnostic model
Design, Synthesis, and Preclinical Evaluation of Alpha-Synuclein Binding 19/18Fluorine Labelled Bifunctional/Trifunctional Agents as Potential Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Probes For Parkinson’s Disease
No full textThe abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo
Removal of Cyanogenic Glycosides in Whole Flaxseed via Lactobacillaceae Fermentation
Get PDFFlaxseed is considered as a functional food because it enriches with omega-3, dietary fiber, lignan and protein. Whole flaxseed can be added to bakery products including breads, buns, and cookies to increase the health benefits of these foods. However, flaxseed contains cyanogenic glycosides (CGs), including linamarin, linustatin, lotaustralin and neolinustatin. Cyanogenic glycosides are metabolized to cyanohydrins by the action of the enzymes beta-glucosidase and hydroxynitrile lyase which first cleave glucose from CG then release hydrogen cyanide (HCN) from the cyanohydrin, respectively. Hydrogen cyanide can affect mammalian respiratory systems and can also influence nutrient absorption from food. Thus, CGs should be removed from flaxseed. In this study, whole flaxseed (35 g, 340 g and 1 kg) was fermented with a consortium culture of Lactobacillaceae at 30 °C over 72 h. Concentrations of CGs (total HCN, linustatin and neolinustatin), percent oil, percent secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG) and fatty acid profiles in whole flaxseed were measured using 1H-NMR. The results showed that CGs decreased to below detection limits over 72 h for both bench-scale and scale-up bacterial fermentation experiments. The consortium culture was largely from members of the family Lactobacillaceae. Furthermore, fatty acid composition remained unchanged during fermentation, while concentration of flaxseed oil and SDG significantly improved from 41.20% to 54.40% and 2.26% to 4.13%, respectively, after fermentation. Altogether, whole flaxseed treated via Lactobacillaceae fermentation was depleted in CGs, while nutritional compounds were maintained