Tag Archives: thesis

Featured Thesis: Social-ecological change in Gwich’in territory

An M.A. thesis in the School of Environmental Studies, by Tracey Angela Proverbs

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11086

Abstract:

In the territory of the Gwich’in First Nation, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, environmental, sociocultural, and economic changes are affecting relationships between communities and the land and water. In this thesis, I used two research projects to explore the impacts of social-ecological change in Gwich’in territory by examining cumulative impacts in the cultural landscape, and determinants of access to fish and well-being. In the first part of my MA, I used spatial overlay analysis to quantify and map: 1) cultural feature intensity, 2) cumulative environmental disturbance, and 3) overlap between disturbances and cultural features. I also interviewed four regional cultural heritage experts, who contributed critical insights into representing Gwich’in cultural features. The first two analyses indicated that overlay methods can facilitate understandings of land use and cumulative impacts, illustrating Gwich’in territory as a cultural landscape encompassing widespread, dense cultural features and diffuse, lower intensity cumulative environmental impacts. The third analysis showed that overlaying cultural feature and disturbance data is a novel, straightforward step to better incorporating cultural impacts in cumulative impact assessments. Many of the changes I mapped are affecting fishing practices central to Gwich’in livelihoods. To better understand these changes, in the second part of my MA I explored the relationship between drivers of access to fish and well-being amidst social-ecological change, by interviewing 29 Gwich’in individuals. My interviews showed that socioeconomic and environmental barriers have decreased access to fish. However, access to fish remains critical and related to well-being, driven by various socioeconomic factors. Many of these factors are reflected in sharing networks and adaptive practices that are encompassed in ecological monitoring and land-based education. These factors may strengthen Gwich’in fishing livelihoods, and highlight the importance of programs like the Rat River Char Monitoring program, and land-based education like the Ganahghootr’onatan – Teetł’it Land Based Learning Project.

To read more, visit UVicSpace https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11086

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Activities of daily living as a functional assessment predictor in older adults

by Adeshina Alani

Today, we feature MSc research in Computer Science related to health and aging, “a systematic review with focus on architecture in connected health”. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/11346

Abstract (excerpt):

Background: Functional Assessment (FA) in older adults is an important measure of their health status. FA using Activities of Daily Living (ADL) is a strong predictor of health outcomes, especially as we age. With the development of increasingly-connected health, we have a new opportunity for more robust and improved FA. Objective: The objective of this thesis is to collate and discuss published evidence on FA predictors and how the FA predictors can be collected using the paradigm of Connected Health (CH) architectures through an industrial case study(…)
Conclusion: Having conducted the two SLRs, a wide range of measures were used for FA in older adults, including consideration on the SEATS used for computer-supported FA. Overall, these FA measures and SEATS provide inexpensive and easy-to-implement FA. The diversity of the FA measures and SEATS contributes towards the development of computer-supported FA. However, future work is needed to consider the result of this study as an open-source computer-supported FA tool, and such tool should also be evaluated and verified through direct examination with older adults.

To read more, visit UVicSpace https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/11346

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Physiological and psychological impacts of nighttime call response in firefighters from volunteer and paid-on-call fire departments

by Thomas W. Service 

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11088
Today’s featured thesis was submitted as part of a Master of Science in the School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education.

Abstract (excerpt):

An oft overlooked population in research, firefighters of volunteer and paid-on-call fire departments respond to nighttime calls as a supplement to their normal working hours, making the duties taxing on the autonomic system leading to cardiovascular and endocrine disruptions. These duties also come with a tax burden on the volume and distribution of sleep. The current study was executed in order to gain valuable insight into the impact of nighttime call response in this population and the magnitude and duration of any perturbations. Eight firefighters from Greater Victoria Volunteer and Paid-on-call departments were recruited to wear Equivital EQ02 heart monitors and FitBit Charge 2 devices to record autonomic cardiovascular responses and track sleep between 1900 and 0700.
(…)
The results of this study demonstrate the presence of a significant shift in autonomic control from parasympathetic (PSNS) dominance to sympathetic control and PSNS withdrawal which evokes a cortisol-mediated stress response of comparable magnitude to literature standards for normal waking fluxes. Sleep volume, and arguably the most critical stage of sleep, rapid eye movement, are significantly impacted and the links between cognitive performance and both total and overall REM sleep indicate that call response does not just impact the cardiovascular system but may in fact be reducing mental acuity of firefighters. This is important as it has the potential to impact both self and team health and safety, not only during night time call response, but at the firefighters’ day jobs which they regularly proceed to the very same morning following a call, evidently with significant deprivation in sleep.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Deliciously detailed narratives – the use of food in stories of British war brides’ experiences

by Kendra Horosko

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/3038
Today’s featured thesis was submitted as part of a Master of Arts in the Department of History.

Abstract (excerpt):

During the Second World War, tens of thousands of Canadian soldiers stationed in Britain met and married British women. The majority of these British war brides and their husbands settled in Canada, where these women had to quickly adjust to Canadian customs. Based on interviews with fifteen British war brides currently living in the Victoria area, this thesis analyzes the way in which these women recount stories of their lives and experiences as war brides through recollections of food-centred narratives. Their recollections of the pre-war years, the war years and the post-war years often revolved around memories of food. This thesis will show how war brides make use of such food-centred narratives as a comfortable medium through which to express their emotions regarding the past and to relate their stories, be they joyful, traumatic, nostalgic, somber or elegiac.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Korean parents’, kindergarten teachers’, and kindergarten students’ perceptions of early English-language education

by Seon-Young Park

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/4397
Today’s featured thesis is submitted as part of a Master of Arts in Linguistics.

Abstract:

In Korea, English education in kindergartens has dramatically increased in the last 15 years. As a result, almost all Korean kindergarten students are learning English today. The present study aims to understand Korean parents’, kindergarten teachers’, and kindergarten students’ perceptions of early English-language education (EEE). This study is particularly significant because thus far little research has investigated the perceptions of EEE held by the young learners themselves. Ninety-five participants – 30 kindergarten teachers, 33 parents, and 32 five- and six-year old kindergarten students – were recruited from five kindergartens in four cities in Chung-Nam province, Korea. The parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of EEE were examined through questionnaires, whereas the students’ perceptions of learning English were investigated through multiple data collection methods: a questionnaire, an interview session, and a drawing activity. Questionnaire data gathered from the parents and teachers were quantitatively analyzed, and the data gathered from the kindergarten students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings revealed that the parent and student groups shared more positive attitudes towards EEE than the teacher group. In addition, many more parents and students believed that English education is necessary at the kindergarten level than the teachers did. Concerning kindergarten students’ perceptions, the three data collection methods in this study showed that many kindergarten children consistently held positive attitudes towards learning English. The students were not only interested in learning English, but they also showed high self-confidence in learning English.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: The Mothership – a mixed-use high-density proposal to combat urban sprawl

by Wesley Bowley
https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11205
Today’s featured thesis is submitted as part of a Master’s of Applied Science in Civil Engineering.

Abstract (excerpt):

The built environment is responsible for a large portion of total energy use and emissions. A large portion comes from the buildings themselves, but also the transportation system to move people around. As global populations grow, and more people migrate to cities, it is critically important that new city growth is done in the most sustainable manner possible. The typical North American pattern of urban growth is urban sprawl, characterized by single use type zoning, low density, transportation system dominated by personal vehicles, and poor public transit. Urban sprawl has numerous downsides, including poorer energy efficiency in buildings and infrastructure, more congestion and higher emission from vehicles, as well as many negative health effects. This thesis presents the concept of a Mothership, a large, high-density mixed-use building designed to combat urban sprawl and minimize energy use and emissions of the built environment. A mothership is designed to provide all the amenities and housing of a typical suburb for 10,000 people. The analysis in this thesis employ building simulation tools to model various mothership designs and analyse the operational and embodied energy and carbon emissions for each design, and compare it to base cases of more traditional building use types such as single detached homes, and different types of apartment buildings…
Some of the measures explored are a high carbon tax, net metering, and emissions limits of net zero, and negative emissions with two different electrical grid carbon intensities. Results showed that a highly insulated, timber framed mothership can achieve very high reductions in energy use and emissions. Overall it showed reductions of 71%, 73%, and 74% in operational energy, embodied energy and embodied carbon respectively, over a baseline case of single detached homes. It was estimated that transportation emissions could be reduced by 58% through the mixed-use development reducing the number of trips and electrically powered transportation vehicles and bus rapid transit. This gives a combined total emissions reduction of 61%. …
This illustrates that the integration of renewable energy technologies is not only beneficial for reducing emissions but can also act as an income pathway for energy systems.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Engineering Theses/Dissertations on “Green Vehicle” Technology

Here is a selection of UVic theses and dissertations going back through the years, dealing with hybrid and alternative vehicles. By no coincidence, UVic is host to the UVic Formula Hybrid Team , the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems,  and the Sustainable Systems Design Laboratory. Sustainable transportation is one of the many engineering areas we focus on here at UVic.

S. Munthikodu, “Driving data pattern recognition for intelligent energy management of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles,” M.A.Sc. thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2019. Available: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/11052

R. Cheng, “Modeling and simulation of plug-in hybrid electric powertrain system for different vehicular applications,” M.A.Sc. thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2016. Available: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/7164

S. Ehtesham Al Hanif, “Multi-objective Optimization of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Powertrain Families considering Variable Drive Cycles and User Types over the Vehicle Lifecycle,” M.A.Sc. thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2015. Available: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/6739

B.W. Kerrigan, “The techno-economic impacts of using wind power and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles for greenhouse gas mitigation in Canada,” M.A.Sc. thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2010. Available: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/3140

L. Kelly, “Probabilistic modelling of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle impacts on distribution networks in British Columbia,” M.A.Sc. thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2009. Available: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/1702

J.D. WIshart, “Modelling, simulation, testing, and optimization of advanced hybrid vehicle powertrains,” PhD dissertation, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2008. Available: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/937

M.B. Guether, “Modelling and design optimization of low speed fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles,” M.A.Sc. thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2005. Available: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/675

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: The Salt Spring Dollar

Anyone who had visited the Gulf Islands on the west coast of BC, or anyone who is familiar with small island culture, will appreciate this Master’s thesis examining a community-based micro-economy.

The Salt Spring dollar: toward a re-embedded economy

by Maya Cowan

Abstract:

The Salt Spring dollar is a community currency founded Salt Spring Island, a Gulf Islands community located in the Salish Sea between Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia. Currency use in 2018, nearly two decades after its release in 2001, has declined but remains a means of devising alternatives to the dis-embedded market and environmental degradation, as well as a way of re-embedding social concerns and relations in the exchange of money. This thesis is a case study of this alternative currency and examines how it compares to other alternative currencies. It also examines the reasons the use of the Salt Spring dollar has declined since its inception. The Salt Spring dollar illustrates that monetary exchange and participation in the market is not merely an economic act but is also social and political. While the currency was designed with the purpose of promoting local production and exchange, it also was designed to ground money in community and social relations.

To read more, visit UVicSpace https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/10829

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team