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Spatializing Agency [Among Homelessness] in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
No full textVancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) is a diverse neighbourhood with a complex set of social issues. Decades of neglect and a shortage of suitable housing have resulted in a crisis of homelessness and public spaces being claimed by encampments, which can be described as an act of spatial agency. By adopting an alternative research methodology inspired by Indigenous storytelling, this thesis examines the story of place, people, and generations of frictional issues. Through the exploration of spatial agency at varying scales, the research aims to further question the role of the designer (or architect) as the “expert.” The outcome is a series of design interventions intended to challenge the commodified housing product by exploring housing as a series of less tangible but necessary processes
Headbanging on the Open Door: Heavy Metal Music, Globalization, and Politics in Contemporary China
No full textThis doctoral dissertation focuses on state and society relations in China in the context of globalization through the case study of heavy metal music in China. It is built around extensive field research in the heavy metal music scene in China. Using these rich empirical materials generated from this research, it takes a deep dive into the cultural transformation in China concomitant with the globalization process. It shows how the Party-State accommodates to the cultural dissonance of heavy metal in the course of its own strategic embrace of globalization while the metalheads manoeuvre to express their cultural preferences in the face of the Party’s own cultural project. The research unveils the inconspicuous yet significant aspects of the undertow of globalization and demonstrate how globalization insinuates itself into the blurring and fluid boundaries between the Chinese state and society. It shows how the metalheads find themselves somewhere between the domestic political hegemony of the Party and the cultural hegemony of the modern West. To analyze the dilemmas facing the metalheads and the Chinese state, the thesis draws on critical international relations theories including works of Robert Cox and Stuart Hall
The Long Memory of Mourning: An Investigation into the Process of Political Apologies from Refusal to Recognition
No full textThe first domestic apology delivered by the leader of the Canadian government was in 1988 for the Second World War injustices against Japanese Canadians. The apology became the first of at least a dozen formal apologies since issued by the federal government to acknowledge past wrongs, particularly to racialized minorities and Indigenous communities. Dubbed as “the age of apology” by scholar Roy L. Brooks, state apologies are wielded in modern nation-building discourses and become the official lens through which societies understand historical events. This research critically contextualizes the agency of aggrieved groups in positing the arc of their own historical narratives and draws from three temporally overlapping case studies to trace a better understanding of political recognition in the settler state, as well as its limitations. The aim of this dissertation is to critically examine the socio-political contexts that led to three separate apologies between 1988 and 2010 to better understand why the Canadian state apologizes for some grievances while ignoring others. Ranging from human rights violations and systemic discrimination, to state abandonment of civilians involved in Japanese Canadian redress, redress for the High Arctic relocation, and the remembrance of Air India Flt 182, the through line of these different case studies is the pursuit by each community for political recognition, which this study defines as obtaining the federal government’s formal acknowledgement of its past wrongs in violating a group’s human rights and dignity through acute oppression or structural discrimination. Each study takes an interdisciplinary approach blending archival research and original oral interviews to offer new insights into the provisional nature of political recognition. At its heart, this research examines the decades of state refusal, including their liberal logics of private property and national security, to better understand the subsequent proliferation of settler state apologies. By doing so, this research centers the memory-making of aggrieved communities in their pursuit of political recognition, memorials, and reparations and critically analyzes the limits of recognition in a settler state
Integrating Indoor Environmental Quality and Decision-Making at Early Building Design
No full textThe presented research outlines a building design framework that integrates occupant comfort and diversity to holistically evaluate IEQ and enhance building performance. To achieve these objectives, the proposed thesis is divided into three main parts. First, this study aims to introduce an efficient simulation-based framework involving parametric modelling to simultaneously quantify the impact of design decisions on all four domains of IEQ, namely, thermal comfort, visual comfort, acoustic comfort, and air quality. The results indicated the importance of considering all comfort domains together, as one design choice might improve one IEQ domain at the cost of others. Then, it provides guidance on how to weigh each domain and corresponding metrics, particularly during the early design. To achieve this goal, the study investigates the effect of different weighting schemes suggested in the literature on commercial building design elements. Thus, high-performance designs are identified and compared based on each weighting scheme. Results show that, as long as all four comfort domains are considered, the choice of weighting scheme does not significantly affect the selection of designs. Therefore, an equal weighting scheme is suggested for man IEQ elements at the early stage. Next, the proposed thesis will explore design decisions concerning the diverse needs and preferences of occupants, analyzing how these factors influence both building performance and occupant satisfaction. It develops and demonstrates a workflow to integrate various occupant types at the design stage. The study initially presents an "occupant profile sheet" derived from a survey conducted among building experts, aiding in the classification of occupants into distinct profiles. Next, a parametric workflow that evaluates various design options based on performance metrics for different occupant profiles is developed. Finally, it employed a case study using the proposed workflow to evaluate the impact of considering diverse occupants on the selection of optimal design parameters. The findings highlight the fact that incorporating various occupant types in the design process can influence architectural decisions. Overall, the research offers a practical decision-making guide for designing buildings that accommodate occupant diversity and comfort, creating a more inclusive environment for a broader range of occupants
"Because it is There": Cartography, Mountaineering and the Colonization of Chomolungma
No full textThe first ascent of Chomolungma (also known as Mount Everest) is often characterized in popular and academic literature alike as an act of “conquest,” an event preceded by a series of unsuccessful “assaults.” Instead, though critical analysis of expeditionary accounts, memoirs, imperial correspondence, and contemporary print culture, this thesis argues that the history of mountaineering on “Mount Everest” is better described as a process of colonization. This process began with the British “discovery” of the mountain and its construction as terra nullius onto which a European name was imprinted. It was imbricated with other colonial enterprises, notably the colonization and mapping of India, and was made possible through direct acts of military coercion. Rather than mere beneficiaries of the colonization, mountaineers were active and crucial participants in it transforming Mount Everest into a space for performances of masculinity, nationalism, and empire
Technoeconomic Analysis of a Solar Thermal Driven Adsorption Chiller Space Conditioning System for Canadian Multi-Unit Residential Buildings
No full textBuilding energy demands and associated greenhouse gas emissions are increasing in Canada. A potential pathway to counteract this trend involves replacing conventional space conditioning technologies with more sustainable solar based technologies. This study evaluates the technoeconomic and environmental performance of a solar-driven adsorption-based system used to meet the space conditioning and domestic hot water demands of a low-energy multi-unit residential building in Canada. A transient numerical model of the building and proposed system is developed. Results from annual simulations in 12 Canadian locations show that the proposed system can achieve solar fractions greater than 0.8 and can reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by up to 62.7% and 99.8% relative to heat pump and natural gas reference systems, respectively. While the levelized cost of energy for the proposed system is high, a compelling economic argument can be made in jurisdictions with fossil fuel dependent electrical grids
Demonstration of a Cruciform Gamma-Ray Direction-Finder with both Self-Shielding and Compton Imaging Modes
No full textEffective technologies for locating radioactive materials across large areas are being developed as governments globally prepare for nuclear incidents. The present study investigates a Cruciform device that provides both Compton gamma imaging and simple direction-finding based on self-shielding. The Compton imaging and self-shielding modes perform well for detecting a single medium-energy source at multiple azimuthal angles. The performance degrades, however, for both modes at higher elevation angles. The self-shielding mode can determine the source direction even for low-energy sources when the Compton-scattering mode is impossible. The Compton-scattering mode on the other hand, provides gamma images of two equal-energy sources, where the self-shielding mode points to the source distribution centroid. In conclusion, the Cruciform detector helps localize distant sources, especially near the horizon. The Compton mode provides actual imaging capabilities in the presence of higher energy sources, while its self-shielding mode helps localize low-energy sources
The Role of Foodborne Bacteria in Antimicrobial Resistance Dissemination
No full textFrom a One Health lens to understanding antimicrobial resistance (AMR) dissemination, little research has explored the role of foodborne bacteria in contributing to this spread and its impact on public health in Canada. This thesis aims to expand on this knowledge with objectives to (i) evaluate the transfer of plasmid-encoded β-lactam resistance from four foodborne bacteria to Salmonella enterica strains and (ii) screen various types of ready-to-eat frozen stone fruits imported into Canada for the presence of critical transmissible AMR genes. Results showed the successful transfer of the plasmid-encoded resistance to all the S. enterica strains used under various environmental conditions. Clinically relevant AMR genes, including extended-spectrum β-lactamases, were detected in bacteria from the fruit samples. Some of the retrieved isolates clustered with clinical isolates. These findings should prompt further research and data collection to enhance understanding AMR prevalence and spread in the food supply chain
A Comparison of Different Modes of Morning Priming Exercise on Evening Jump, Lower Body Strength and On-Ice Sprint Performance in Sub-Elite Female Hockey Players
No full textThe use of a pre-game skate to positively influence evening competition readiness is a common practice in ice hockey, however there is little evidence to support its efficacy. Current research indicates that resistance priming (RP) can lead to increased neuromuscular potentiation and improved performance. The objective of this study was to compare the effects of morning on-ice sprinting, and RP, versus a control condition (no activity), on various measures of performance. This study used a repeated measure, counterbalanced design, with all subjects completing both experimental and control trials. Post hoc analysis of combined morning treatments (RP and on-ice sprints) showed improvements in lower body power and strength, however, decreases in on-ice speed were observed when compared to no training. These results demonstrate the efficacy of morning training in impacting performance variables in female hockey players, however inter-individual variation should be considered when employing these interventions in an applied setting
Calculation of Absolute Protein-Ligand Binding Energies
No full textThe calculation of protein-ligand binding affinities requires accurate methods to predict the relative potential energies of ligands. Here, we show the calculation of absolute protein-ligand binding energies using alchemical free energy perturbation for MM methods for ligands binding to c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1 (JNK1) from the Schrodinger protein-ligand test set to validate a MM method for calculating absolute binding energies. The conformational, orientational, and translational terms and the binding energy have been calculated on a test set. The orientational binding energy calculated using conventional MM models developed by Chipot et al. is compared to the one developed by Roux et al., which did not illustrate a high improvement in the accuracy of the absolute binding energy. Therefore, these methods would not be sufficiently accurate for predicting the protein-ligand binding affinities and require further refinement or exploration of alternative computational approaches to improve their predictive capabilities