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Using a drifting hydrophone array to obtain positions of Atlantic harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and analyze their vocalizations and swimming behaviour
No full textAtlantic harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) are common to the inner Bay of Fundy, including the Minas Passage area where tidal energy development is underway. Towards determining the potential effects of tidal energy turbine installations in Minas Passage on harbour porpoise behaviour, this study used drifting passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) sensors to collect high-quality sound data, including porpoise echo
location clicks. The study also applied new methods and procedures to process the hydrophone array datasets. A 2017 field study provided data for comparison of three monitoring methods: C-POD, icListenHF hydrophone with Coda click detector, and visual sightings. The broadband icListenHF hydrophone with Coda detected relatively more harbour porpoise vocalizations and was less susceptible to high flow noise. A follow up study in 2018 used an array of four synchronized hydrophones suspended from a drifter. Positional information was estimated from porpoise clicks. Click source level, effective sampling range (~30 m), and local porpoise abundance (~2.8 per km2) were estimated from detected clicks. Water masses west of Minas Passage appear to have greater porpoise vocalization activity, and likely greater porpoise abundance, than more eastern water masses. Echolocation click tracks suggest that porpoises sometimes exhibit little movement when at depth for extended periods. Video footage indicate near-surface swimming speeds of~2 m/s. On-beam click detections gave greater source level, a wider click envelope, and more reverberations at the tail of the click when compared to off-beam detections. This is consistent with anatomical focusing of sound to form a beam from many transmission paths within the porpoise. This study demonstrated that porpoise clicks can be used to reliably obtain porpoise position out to ~40 m, which is in line with turbine near-field monitoring needs
Medicalized definitions of severe mental illness: a qualitative analysis of Nova Scotia's mental health policies, strategies & legislation
No full textThis study seeks to answer two questions: how do Nova Scotia policy makers define severe mental illness? How do definitions of severe mental illness influence the creation and implementation of mental health policies? Theoretical frameworks and concepts such as social constructionism, medicalization, stigma, and intersectionality were used to unpack the characteristics that are essential to defining severe mental illness. Literature on North American mental health policies were examined to provide context. The methods used were a Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) (guided by a critical discourse analysis) of Nova Scotia's most current mental health strategies and legislation, as well as conducting semi-structured interviews with ten individuals that embody the roles of policy makers, mental health professionals, and members of mental health Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). The findings were broken down into five themes. (1) The process of defining severe mental illness is framed through the process of medicalization and the mental health continuum; (2) the social determinants of health framework is used to frame diversity in mental health policy; (3) medical professionals have more power in contributing to mental health policies than persons with lived experience; (4) the mental health system is disconnected, which creates discontinuous mental health treatment; (5) stigma impacts severely mentally ill marginalized persons more so than non-marginalized persons. Severe mental illness is defined through medicalized discourse, which ignores the social context of persons with severe mental illness. Thus, a new definition of severe mental illness must include of social analysis paired with medical discourse in understanding the distress of persons with severe mental illness. Severe mental illness and mental distress must be examined societal structures
Surf'n bake: exploring the sensory characteristics of seaweed composite bread
No full textSeaweeds have been eaten in the diets of coastal cultures for centuries; however, consumption of seaweeds has seen limited interest in Western diets due to undesirable sensory characteristics, and a lack of familiarity and accessibility. Apart from healthful bioactive metabolites, seaweeds are good sources of fibre, protein, minerals, and have a low-fat content (mainly mono or polyunsaturated). The objective of this study was to investigate if brown seaweed, Ascophyllum nodosum, or red seaweed, Chondrus crispus, could be feasibly added to bread. Additionally, to determine how, if at all, brown or red seaweed altered the sensory properties of whole-wheat bread. The two seaweeds were incorporated into separate batches of whole wheat bread by percentage weight flour at 0% (Control), 2%, 4%, 6%, and 8%. The samples were presented to
consumers (n= 54(M= 20, F= 34) and n= 64(M= 16, F= 48) to determine the sensory characteristics and the overall liking of the breads. A. nodosum and C. crispus breads were acceptable at 4% and 2% levels, respectively. The attributes of no aftertaste, soft and chewy, drove consumer liking of whole wheat bread, while attributes dry, dense, strong aftertaste and saltiness detracted from liking. The significance of this
project is to demonstrate the acceptability of seaweed in a Western population, which may lay groundwork to encourage and promote the consumption of seaweed or to exemplify seaweed incorporation into foodstuffs
A comparison of CNN and DBN image classification models under adversarial conditions
No full textWe investigate and compare Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Deep Belief Network's (DBN) ability to withstand several common attacks to limit their performance. We propose that CNN makes a strong inductive bias assumption about the relationship between pixels that are proximal to each other that makes it valuable to adversarial attacks. We implement several attacks using the MNIST and CIFAR-10 dataset where we modify pixels of the test images in different ways to challenge the CNN and DBN models. Each experiment is run multiple times to develop and test models. The accuracy of the models
for each method is analyzed. The results show that DBN models generally perform better under attack than the CNN models. When the assumption of the relationship between pixels is removed, the advantage of CNNs convolutional inductive bias no longer exist
"Trying to find a modern way" to be Christian and feminist: religious practices and acts of resistance among queer, feminist Christian women
No full textIn this thesis, I represent the life histories and acts of resistance among three queer, feminist Christian women to understand how they persist as modern practitioners of Christianity. In a moment of time where Christianity, in the West, has become largely synonymous with conservativism, I assert that young, queer, feminist women remain in Christianity as a direct act of resistance—they stay because they belong and refuse to be excluded from Christian practice by structural barriers or by individuals who seek to oust them from the religion on the basis of gender, sexuality, or sociopolitical values.
To do so, I first present the life histories of three young women and convey how the predominant themes of their life histories—stories of resistance, devotion, hardship, and courage—manifest as acts of resistance to exclusionary structures within the Christian tradition. This use of life history as an ethnographic method prioritizes the voices of the three women involved in the study. I then analyze their experience and present the various acts of resistance they perform. This analysis provides insight into how these women: engage with sociopolitical matters in the church; undertake the process of identity management while moving between
secular and non-secular spaces; navigate media's portrayal of Christianity; address ultra-conservativism in their communities; and, how one consultant seeks to revitalize her relationship with Christianity, in response to these barriers and challenges leading her to question her Christian identity.
These stories represent the larger movement of revitalization occurring within Christianity, with queer, feminist women petitioning for their right to be included in a religion they maintain has always been a welcoming, accepting tradition to which they naturally belong
Schooling food: an examination of student food practice at a small rural university in Canada
No full textThis thesis explores student food practices at a rural, largely residential University campus in Eastern Canada answering the research question: what are the social relations of student food practices? Using the meso-
level social construct of social practice, as well as life course theory and the concept of place, qualitative research was conducted in 2015 using 12 semi-structured interviews, one focus group, and secondary analysis of qualitative comments from a campus-wide survey on student food insecurity. Results of the thematic qualitative analysis show that student food practices are in transition while at university, shaped by changing macro and micro social relations particular to place, demonstrating an example of what Bourdieu terms a 'habitus in flux.' The results also show that for many students, transitions to adulthood and the reformulation of habitus, are limited by access to economic capital realized in high rates of food insecurity while at university
Assessing non-targeted camera and manual surveys for characterizing a medium-to-large mammalian species assemblage at a highway construction site
No full textRoad networks and traffic have demonstrable effects on the survival and behavior of individual mammals that can culminate in negative population impacts. Despite a need for assessing mammalian species assemblages at new and existing roads, simple and efficient non-targeted survey options are limited. Camera arrays and foot-based surveys at plots, transects, and surrounding roads were used at a highway construction and stream intersection to inventory medium-to-large mammals and assess the positioning of detections in time and space. Cameras (64,334 images and 1,237 survey days), plot and transect (328 plot and 25-m transect segment surveys), and road (448 km) surveys detected 15 mammal species, 13 of which were expected on-site. Qualitatively, most detections aligned with species-specific temporal (monthly, time-of-day) and spatial (habitat, landscape features) activity patterns. Fine and coarse spatial tests had contradictory results for snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), signifying survey methods were unable to distinguish small-scale spatial activity patterns for these species, possibly due to unequal survey effort or small survey areas relative to home range size. Cameras provided more reliable data than foot-based surveys; non-camera surveys can provide supplementary data and inform camera placement. Method choice, survey design, and implementation must be informed by project objectives; design considerations are more complex where frequency, temporal, or spatial variables are important. Future work must re-assess cameras and foot-based surveys where effort is standardized across assessed spatial and temporal scales and among survey methods. Comparisons in detection efficiency by species between non-targeted surveys and species-specific methods should be conducted
A narrative approach to the female body: anti-trafficking training material based on biblical and theological narratives of the female body
No full textThe central thesis of this dissertation is that the physical body is a crucial category for engagement and understanding for those visiting prostituted women in the brothels of Czechia (official name of the Czech Republic). As such this dissertation focuses on narratives of the physical bodies of prostituted women, women within the Bible, and the brothel volunteers. A narrative approach is used to express the varied lived experiences of the bodies of women. The dissertation begins with a narrative sketch of the lives of women in prostitution, based on the eight years of experience the researcher has visiting women in the sex industry of Czechia. This sketch leads to the discovery that the prostitution experience involves the related themes of connection and disconnection: to and from God, others, and self. These themes are followed through the narratives of various biblical women, finding that they too experience a sense of connection and/or disconnection based on the narratives of their bodies. In the theology section which follows these narrative explorations, the human body in its desire for connection as having iconic value in further exploring the mystery of God, is discussed. As the female body lives within a state of disconnection, yet longs for connection, so too does it point to the longing of the human heart for connection with the ultimate source of connection, the divine one. Qualitative research, in the form of focus groups and questionnaires, demonstrates that brothel volunteers have the same themes flowing throughout their narratives as those of the women in prostitution and the women in the Bible: disconnection and connection, based on lived narratives of their bodies. As a result, strategies to help volunteers to better engage in brothel interactions, emerge. These include the need for more connection with their own bodies, and the desire for training curriculum which would facilitate this. In the final chapter of this dissertation the researcher suggests some training needs and ways in which these needs might be addressed, through additional trainings and more adequate training curriculum
Opening the door to ambiguity: exploring queer identity and community through conversation and comics-making
No full textThis arts based, participatory action research (PAR) thesis is engaged in opening up space for queer creative expression and community-building beyond the restrictive bounds of heteronormativity. Guided by principles of queer theory, Rogerian humanistic psychology, and liberation psychology, my co-participants and I (all queer-identifying young adults between the ages of 21 and 27 living in Halifax, Nova Scotia) developed a collaboratively therapeutic group process, sharing our experiences and understandings of queer identity and community with one another through conversation and comics-making. Through the analysis of our artwork and our discussions, four themes emerged to describe what we each gain by attaching ourselves to the ambiguous identity label of queer: authenticity, self-determination, fluidity, and complexity. At the end of our group process, we created a zine which we offer as a window into our perspectives, in order to contribute to queer representation within counselling education and in the world beyond academia
Survival and movements of American black ducks (Anas rubripes) and mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) wintering in western Nova Scotia, Canada
No full textAmerican black ducks were once the most abundant and most heavily harvested species of waterfowl in eastern North America but wintering black duck populations have declined and continue to decline in southern and central regions of the black duck's wintering range. In contrast,recent ob servations suggest numbers of black ducks wintering in Atlantic Canada are increasing. Despite the extensive amount of research on black ducks, little work has focused on better understanding black ducks that overwinter at the northernmost limit of the black duck wintering range. To build upon the knowledge of wintering black ducks in Atlantic Canada,
I examined survival and movements of American black ducks and mallards that winter near the northern limit of their range.
To assess survival and fidelity of wintering American black ducks and mallards, I used data from 498 black ducks and 550 mallards captured and banded during the wintering period from 2009-2015 at an agricultural site in western Nova Scotia, Canada. I found virtually no support for models with annual variation in survival, fidelity or reporting probabilities. In general, survival was high and comparable to results from other locations and from birds banded before the fall hunting season. Male mallards and black ducks had a higher probably of survival (72.3% and 88.8% for males > 2 years old) compared to female mallards and black ducks (53.8% and 71.9%). Young male black ducks had a higher rate of reporting than adult male black ducks, suggesting a higher vulnerability to harvest that persists after surviving their first hunting season. Female black ducks had the lowest reporting rate of all groups, and both species showed high winter site-fidelity.
Migratory chronology and movements of American black ducks were analyzed using data from 11 black ducks tagged with Platform Terminal Transmitter. These telemetry data revealed that wintering black ducks from
my study site contained both longer-distance migrants and locally-breeding individuals. Longer distance migrants moved away from the wintering area to inland areas throughout Atlantic Canada to stage before traveling north to breed as far away as the southern shores of Ungava Bay, Quebec, while some birds remained in Nova Scotia year-round.
Results presented in this thesis will inform future population modeling, harvest management and habitat capacities assessments of these two species at the northeastern limit. When future work assesses Atlantic Canada's carrying capacity for wintering black ducks, researchers and conservationists may want to consider the implications of high rates of survival and fidelity in a population of black ducks that contains year-
round locals and migrant birds