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Linear enamel hypoplasia as a proxy for environmental stress in fossil apes
Get PDF1 online resource (iii, 51 pages) : colour illustrationsIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (pages 43-51).The Anthropocene, our current geological era, is defined by increased anthropogenic
environmental alteration that is reducing great ape populations globally. As this occurs, there
becomes an increased need to not only understand how great apes are being impacted by the
changing environment, but how they will respond to this change. The focus of this research is to
use the dental developmental defect Linear Enamel Hypoplasia in the Late-Miocene great ape
Hispanopithecus crusafonti to reconstruct Late-Miocene seasonality. These patterns are then
analyzed in relation to previous research on Late-Miocene climate to understand how H.
crusafonti responded to increasingly variable seasonality. The Late-Miocene, similarly to the
Anthropocene, faced climatic upheaval that resulted in the extinction of many great ape species.
Seasonal bouts of physiological stress are expressed through enamel depressions in fossil teeth.
Through microscopic analysis and reconstruction of the duration of annual stress intervals, the
irregularity of Late-Miocene seasonality is identified. These findings are applied to a comparison
with the extant great ape, Pongo, who expresses many of the same specialized characteristics as
H. crusafonti; features like morphology, diet, and ecology are influenced by their similar warm
and tropical forest habitats and are therefore reflected in both species. It was determined that the
primary factors influencing the decline of both fossil and extant great apes is the frequency of
stress events and great ape specialization, which limits adaptability during seasonal and
environmental variability. This constrains them and bases their survival on specific
environmental conditions that are not conducive to the rapidly changing climate of the
Anthropocene. This is likely what led to the extinction of H. crusafonti and what is currently
severely decreasing orangutan and great ape populations
Ocean-air N2O trace gas fluxes in Halifax Harbour derived from Open-Path FTIR measurements
Get PDF1 online resource (133 pages) : colour illustrations, colour maps, charts (chiefly colour), graphsIncludes abstract and appendix.Includes bibliographical references (pages 112-116).Open-Path Fourier Transform Infrared (OP-FTIR) spectroscopy is an established technique for path-average measurements of atmospheric trace gas concentrations. We describe the novel application of OP-FTIR to measure ocean-air gas fluxes across 586 m of Halifax Harbour (northwest Atlantic coast), also using a 3-D sonic anemometer and two vertically separated retroreflector arrays. We present spectroscopic retrievals of nitrous oxide (N2O) concentration, micrometeorological data characteristics, and flux-gradient method calculations of ocean-air N2O flux. From Dec. 2020 to Apr. 2021 the calculated ocean sink of −10.81 kgN2Oha−1 agreed broadly with a global model of thermal (solubility-driven) N2O flux. A powerful short-term ocean source event observed on Dec. 15-17 (+2.00 kgN2Oha−1 ) correlated with high winds and strong ocean cooling that plausibly caused surface overturning and the upwelling of N2O-rich deeper waters. The method presented is well suited to high frequency monitoring of coastal N2O fluxes, necessary to resolve complex physical, chemical and biological processes
Blame attributions for experienced incivility and links to leader well-being : a mixed-methods approach
Get PDF1 online resource (123 pages) : graphsIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (pages 81-104).The current mixed-methods study applied latent variable modelling to understand unique
subpopulations of leaders attributing blame for an uncivil incident instigated by a higher-up. Profiles of blame attributors were developed as a combination of internal, perpetrator, relational, situational and gender-extrinsic attributions. Latent Profile Analysis conducted on the quantitative attribution scales uncovered four profiles (perpetrator-dominant, perpetrator-situational, balanced, muted-balanced) and Latent Class Analysis conducted on the qualitative codes transformed from incident descriptions uncovered two profiles (perpetrator-dominant, perpetrator-situational). Differences between the Latent Profile Analysis profiles in subsequent well-being were observed for high-intensity and low-intensity negative affect and high-intensity positive affect, but not for low-intensity positive affect. Attribution profiles were explored, in part, through a gender-lens but no significant differences in the gender distribution of leaders across profiles were observed. Study limitations, implications and suggestions for future research are discussed
“If you can’t tell, does it matter?” : race, gender, sex and the cybergaze of Westworld’s gynoids
Get PDF1 online resource (105 pages)Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (pages 99-105).HBO’s Westworld is a widely viewed and critically acclaimed network television program centered on robotic characters in a science fiction setting. Westworld’s success has been attributed in part to HBO’s trademark use of onscreen violence, sex, and brutality, as well as the show’s supposed engagement with themes of personhood, gender, and emancipation. However, Westworld has also been critiqued as problematic in its depictions of race, gender and sexuality in particular its characterization of robotic women (also called ‘gynoids’). This thesis interrogates these portrayals of women further with the research question ‘what androcentric and colonialist parameters inform the portrayal of filmic gynoids, as seen in HBO's Westworld?’ In answering this question, this thesis draws upon critical race theory, feminist theory, objectification theory and gaze theory, and asserts that Westworld relies on hyper-sexualized, racist, colonial and hegemonically gendered conceptions of femininity and humanity in its representation of gynoids
The effects of binary stars on inferred remnant populations in globular clusters
Get PDF1 online resource (xiii, 70 pages) : illustrations, charts (some colour), graphs (some colour)Includes abstract and appendix.Includes bibliographical references (pages 68-70).Current, state-of-the-art equilibrium mass models of globular clusters assume that all stars are single, making the effects of binary systems an unknown quantity. In this thesis we develop a method to include realistic binary populations in these models. We use our method to fit three sets of models with varying binary fractions to observations of the globular cluster 47 Tuc. All three sets of models are able to reproduce all observables and differ almost exclusively in their recovered mass function slopes and black hole content while retaining consistent estimates for structural parameters. Models with binary fractions of 0%, 2% and 10% have inferred black hole populations with masses of 135+104−92 M⊙, 114+144−79 M⊙ and 81+121 −81 M⊙ respectively,showing that the inferred black hole content decreases when increasing the assumed binary fraction. We show that this effect is due to binary stars filling a similar role to black holes in the central mass distribution of the cluster indicating that there exists a degeneracy between the adopted binary fraction and the inferred black hole content for some clusters. We further discuss the implications of these results for past and future works
A light in the darkness : horror as catharsis
Get PDF1 online resource (153, 3 unnumbered pages) : illustrationsIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (pages 133-153).Horror – despite the disapproval pervading its commonplace use, there is a clear asymmetry
between humanity’s general aversion to, and negative characterization of, horror in its “natural”
sense, and our attraction to horror aesthetically represented.
In recent years, “horror” has evolved into a universally acknowledged cross-art, cross-media
genre, distinguished by its concentrating predominantly on the emotion of fear, generally at the
expense of other elements, feelings, or themes. Explaining our paradoxical fascination with
horror as an aesthetic phenomenon is the primary purpose of this thesis.
Alexander “Al” Scott Baker contends that frightening representations please, both by
transmuting a generally unpleasant sensation into something positive, and, perhaps more
significantly, by encouraging reflection on matters of life and death. Existential reflection
frequently quells apprehensions latent within us that, left unchecked, can cause significant
psychological pain. This suggests that horror constitutes a particularly valuable, profound mode
of entertainment
Nest material preferences among European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) with a focus on feathers and anthropogenic materials
Get PDF1 online resource (28 pages) : charts, graphsIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (pages 20-23).Avian nests provide critical shelter for offspring and differ in structure according to the species. They typically consist of natural materials such as dried grass, feathers from other species, and anthropogenic materials woven into them. The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is an urban-thriving cavity-nesting species. Their nests consist of both natural and anthropogenic materials taken from the surrounding area. Anthropogenic materials have been shown to reduce fledging success in certain species. Passerine research has previously revealed birds prefer unpigmented (white) feathers over pigmented feathers to incorporate into their nest, although a mixture of both
may be present. Studies have demonstrated that unpigmented feathers result in greater hatching success. Along with that, the amount of feathers within a nest is positively correlated with growth rates among nestlings. Nests within nestboxes occupied by starlings in 2021 at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia were examined after fledging to document the amount of anthropogenic materials and feathers among them. Of these, 16 nests were collected from early broods, and 22 from late broods. The amount of anthropogenic materials and feathers did not differ between early and late broods. Brood condition tended to be negatively correlated with the amount of anthropogenic materials and was significantly negatively correlated with total feather mass within a nest. However, there was no detected relationship between hatching success and the amount of unpigmented feathers within a nest. Along with there being no detected relationship between the amount of anthropogenic materials and fledging success among nestlings. Anthropogenic materials and feathers appeared to have adverse effects on nestling condition, so it is surprising that they are abundant in many of their nests
Survey of porewater geochemistry within deep marine hydrocarbon seep sediments of the Scotian Slope, Canada
Get PDF1 online resource (74 pages) : colour maps, charts, graphsIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (pages 61-74).The ocean floor surface sediments of the Scotian Slope, Nova Scotia are host to a complex network of microbially mediated reactions that knit together the carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles. Limited diffusion between the upper water column and ocean floor muds pore space, coupled with competitive microbial ecological niche partitioning, leads to theformation of biogeochemically controlled redox gradients. The energetics of such gradients are further governed by microbial heterotrophy with the deposition of detrital organic matter that is primarily sourced from terrestrial runoff and upper water column productivity. However, these microbial biogeochemical zones change if surface sediments are impregnated by hydrocarbon seepage that migrates up from deeper within the basin. Porewater profiles of F-, NO2-, NO3-, CO32- and SO42- were used to reconstruct biogeochemical stratification depth profiles that can providecomparative evidence for anion behaviour in active cold seep sites. These profiles define microbialmetabolic processes within the sediment subsurface. To test this hypothesis, 50 samples stratigraphically collected across 9 sediment cores were separated, centrifugated and analyzed using ion chromatography. A comparative study between two methods of data analysis was applied to the samples. The internal calibration method of standard addition proved to be a better method than external calibration method of calibration curve to measure porewater anion concentrations of natural samples with complex matrices and a varying range of concentrations. For this reason, porewater anion concentrations were compared using the standard addition method. Fluoride concentration seems uncorrelated to sediment depth and unique sample heterogeneity might be the leading factor to its variation. However, NO2-, NO3-, and SO42-display decreasing concentrations with increasing depths. Carbonate displays a steady variation in concentration possibly attributing to precipitated aggregates of carbonate rocks in the ocean floor surface sediments not being subject to a massive change. Sulfate concentration decreases dramatically in both ambient and hydrocarbon impacted marine benthic sediments although, in hydrocarbon impacted sites, it appears to occur at a much shallower depth suggesting that the redox gradient is much more pronounced and as much sulfate reduction has not yet transpired with the ambient sediments at the same depth. Nitrate and NO2- trends also show similar pronounced reduction patterns occurring at shallower depths for hydrocarbon impacted sediments suggesting widespread increased microbial and bacterial activity in these regions.</p
Digital dating abuse
Get PDF1 online resource (178 pages) : illustrations (some colour), chartsIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (pages 81-101).Using Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a framework, the present study investigated the factors associated with emerging adults’ intentions to perpetrate
three different forms of digital dating abuse (DDA), as well as intentions to seek support
from mental health professionals following victimization. The extended TPB models
explained 47%, 37%, and 49% of the variance in intentions to commit digitally facilitated
monitoring and control, direct aggression, and sexual coercion, respectively. Attitudes and
injunctive norms significantly predicted intentions whereas descriptive norms and
perceived behavioural control did not. Past behaviour, past victimization, and gender
norms had indirect effects on intentions. Additionally, the extended TPB model accounted
for 41% of intentions to seek help following DDA victimization. Attitudes emerged as a
significant predictor, along with fear and past use of mental health services. Given the
increasing prevalence of DDA, prevention efforts should target attitudes towards DDA related behaviours and perceptions of social acceptability
Multimass modelling of milky way globular clusters and implications on their dark remnant content and stellar initial mass function
Get PDF1 online resource (xii, 227 pages) : charts (chiefly colour), graphs (chiefly colour)Includes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (pages 130-140).The distribution of stars and stellar remnants within globular clusters holds clues
about their formation and long-term evolution. In this work, we infer best-fitting
multimass models for a number of Milky Way globular clusters, which are compared
to various datasets. These models allow us to explore in detail the stellar (initial) mass
functions and remnant populations of a large sample of Milky Way GCs. Examination
of the low-mass mass function of the clusters suggests an IMF which is considerably
flatter and depleted in low mass stars than canonical IMFs, while the high-mass
IMF is consistent with a Salpeter IMF. New constraints on the number and mass in
black holes for each cluster are inferred from our models, and comparisons to various
studies predicting the black hole population in GCs are performed, finding generally
good agreement, and in most cases no need for large populations of BHs to explain
the data