Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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Affective Power of Intimacy
This case study’s fan fiction and its subsequent non-RPF romance novel version reveal a complex blend of the fan fiction, romance novel, intimatopia, pornography, slash fan fiction, Real Person Fan Fiction, and Men’s Hockey Real Person Fan Fiction genres and subgenres. Intimatopia’s ideological framework provides a specific method for the romance novel’s reordering of self and society, as well as a description of the resulting ordered society and self. As analysis of the reader comments left on the Archive of Our Own fan fiction reveals, intimacy is also critical to the fan fiction’s community, because the reader is driven to comment by the text’s affective power. The relationship between the reader and the text is primary for the reader, whereas the author’s primary aim is to seek an intimate relationship with their readers. There is a conceptual link between the literary and social contexts through their privileging of intimacy as a mode of interaction for the texts’s characters, readers, and authors. Author Keywords: Archive of Our Own, community, fan fiction, intimatopia, Men's Hockey Real Person Fan Fiction, romance novel
Smile and a Neutral Attitude
This thesis examines the ways in which body image is discussed in online settings. There are three different communities discussed: body positivity, proED (pro-eating disorder), and body neutrality. Both body positivity and proED content are fairly popular online, and both have found significant support and followers on various social medias. In this thesis, I argue that both of these types of content cause significant harm to those who engage with them, primarily because both communities (though different in their approaches to body image) work to uphold the thin ideal. I then bring up the third type of content: body neutrality. Body neutrality has not been given the same academic attention as body positivity and proED content, likely due to its relative infancy. In this thesis, I propose body neutrality as a much healthier way to frame body image online because of its completely neutral stance on fat, thinness, and general body image. Though any work relating to social media is quickly out of date, I hope that this thesis provides an overview of body neutrality and how, in its current form, it provides a more balanced approach to online body image discussions. Author Keywords: body image, body neutrality, body positivity, eating disorders, social media
Reconceptualizing a Post-Secondary Program for Students with Intellectual Disabilities
The number of post-secondary programs for students with intellectual disabilities has been on the rise since the early 1990’s (Plotner & Marshall, 2015). However, research focused on student experiences within these programs has been predominantly from faculty, mainstream students and parent’s perspectives without accounting for what the students themselves are experiencing. This thesis however utilizes critical narrative inquiry as a methodology to listen the stories of students with disabilities, in conjunction with the researcher’s personal and professional experiences to reconceptualize the CICE program at Fleming College in Peterborough Ontario in order to provide students with more responsive and inclusive educational experiences. Six themes emerged from interviews conducted in the research: friendship/social opportunities, career/goals, supports, barriers/challenges, independence/freedom and finally identity/inclusion. A critical exploration of these themes is provided to develop programmatic, college and community level changes that forward a reconceptualized view of post-secondary education for adults with disabilities. Author Keywords: Critical disability theory, Critical narrative inquiry, Post-secondary programs for students with disabilities, Student voice
Isotopes of the Caribbean
This research represents the first stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of human bone collagen (n = 29) from the Escape Site (AD 300 - 1000), Saint Vincent. As a two-pronged investigation, this research had the following goals: (1) determining the ideal pretreatment for poorly preserved bones and (2) reconstructing the Escape Site sample population diet. By incorporating powdered specimens, shorter demineralizations and increased acid:sample exposure, higher collagen yields were produced, thereby expanding the sample size for isotopic analysis. Notably, the elemental data suggests that not all isolated collagen was biogenic and was perhaps contaminated by non-collagenous proteins. This highlighted the importance of using multiple criteria to rigorously evaluate collagen based on the full quality indicator profile. In the end, 5 individuals yielded useable isotope data which was consistent with a broad spectrum diet relying primarily on C3 plants as well as terrestrial, reef, nearshore and freshwater fauna. Within the broad region, the Escape Site data was comparable to other islands from the Lesser Antilles and Cuba emphasizing the influence of regional biodiversity as well as the likelihood that the studied population contributed and benefitted from the extensive Saladoid trade networks which existed at the time. Author Keywords: Caribbean, Collagen, Escape Site, Human diet, Saladoid, Stable isotope analysis
Modelling Request Access Patterns for Information on the World Wide Web
In this thesis, we present a framework to model user object-level request patterns in the World Wide Web.This framework consists of three sub-models: one for file access, one for Web pages, and one for storage sites. Web Pages are modelled to be made up of different types and sizes of objects, which are characterized by way of categories. We developed a discrete event simulation to investigate the performance of systems that utilize our model.Using this simulation, we established parameters that produce a wide range of conditions that serve as a basis for generating a variety of user request patterns. We demonstrated that with our framework, we can affect the mean response time (our performance metric of choice) by varying the composition of Web pages using our categories. To further test our framework, it was applied to a Web caching system, for which our results showed improved mean response time and server load. Author Keywords: discrete event simulation (DES), Internet, performance modelling, Web caching, World Wide Web
Food Practices in Transition
The onset of the Natufian sees the unfolding of a lasting dietary shift: the transition from foraging to farming. To understand this transition, we have to identify the exploited plants and explain why they were chosen. To that end, I used use-wear and residue analysis to isolate wear patterns distinctive of specific plants. I conducted a series of six grinding experiments on wheat, barley, fenugreek, lentils, roasted wheat, and rinsed/soaked fenugreek. I then examined the tools under multiple levels of magnification using established protocols and descriptive criteria. To ensure that my descriptive criteria are reproducible, a blind test was performed. The experimental data are then compared to previous studies and residue analysis on the tools used to process wheat and lentils was performed. My results have expanded the experimental database and support the idea that there are distinctions between cereals and legumes and differences between types of cereals and legumes. Author Keywords: Blind test, Cereals, Groundstone tools, Legumes, Starch analysis, Use-wear analysis
Application of Data Science to Paramedic Data
Paramedic data has significant potential for research. Paramedics see many patients every year and collect a wide variety of crucial data at each encounter. This data is rarely used for good reason: it’s messy and hard to work with. But like theunderdog character in a classic movie, with a little bit of work and a lot of understanding, paramedic data has significant potential to change the world of medical research. Paramedics throughout the world are involved in research every day, but most of this research uses purpose-built data structures and never takes advantage of the existing data that paramedics create as part of their everyday work. Through a project-based approach grounded in developing a better understanding of the opioid crisis, this thesis will examine the quantity and structure of the existing paramedic data, the complexities of its current design, the steps necessary to access it, and the processes necessary to clean existing data to a point where it can be easily modelled. Once we have our dataset, we will explore the challenges of choosing key metrics by examining the effectiveness of metrics currently employed to monitor the opioid crisis and the influences public health programs and changing policies have had on these metrics. Next, we will explore the temporal distributions of opioid and other intoxicant use with an eye to providing data to support public health in their harm reduction efforts. And lastly, we will look at the effect of fixed- and floating-point temporal influences on intoxicant-related calls with an eye to how these temporal points can affect call volumes. By using this exploration of the opioid crisis, this thesis will show that with a more thorough understanding of what paramedic data is, what data points are available, and the processes needed to transform it, paramedic data has the potential to greatly expand the limits of health care data science into a more precise and more all-encompassing discipline. Author Keywords: Ambulance, Data Science, Opioid, Overdose, Paramedic, Pre-hospital
Final Makeover, Deindividualization of Women in Contemporary Death Notices
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, print death notices have increased in number, length, and deviations, often as the only form of public recognition for the deceased. This thesis provides close readings through feminist and anti-ageist lenses of ninety print death notices, published in The Peterborough Examiner and Peterborough This Week between October 2019 and October 2021. These readings inform and illustrate the deindividualization of older women in death notices as the product not only of the limitations of language and format, but of a community that panders to regional public interests and traditional ageist tropes of femininity to create worthy public subjects. An exploration of ambiguities, contradictions, and overdeterminations that break with conventions of death notices reveals unintentional makeovers, deindividualization, and the sidelining of older women as subjects of their own memorials and photos in an extension of the systemic and internalized gendered ageism older women experience in life. Author Keywords: Ageism, COVID-19, Death Notices, Deindividualization of Women, Feminism, Older Women
"Non-compliance" in the system
This thesis examines how co-creators Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro’s 2014 graphic work, Bitch Planet, is in all conceivable ways a seminal and prescient example of — to use their term — “non-compliance” in the comics form and industry. From its inception as a feminist dystopia, written by a white woman and illustrated by a Black man, in an industry that is over-represented by white men, Bitch Planet is a prime example of activist comics that is situated perfectly within the “Blue Age” of comics, to use the term coined by comic scholar Adrienne Resha. This is evident in the main narrative of Bitch Planet in which, in an industry still over-represented by white characters, the main cast of characters are four Black women and one Japanese-American woman, each of whom we see come up against a theologically patriarchal white supremacist system that imprisons them for crimes that are gendered, racialized, classist and ableist. DeConnick and De Landro’s collaboration with other artists extends from Laurenn McCubbin’s satirical paratextual in-universe advertisements on the back page of each comic which complement Bitch Planet’s main narrative to an invitation to world- building to the greater comic community, allowing creators with marginalized identities to craft short comic stories that satirically and deeply explore the socio-political issues developed in the main narrative of Bitch Planet. The final act of “non-compliance” comes out of the expansion of authorship of Bitch Planet to the readership via the letters pages, and beyond: highlighting readers’ Twitter messages, connecting with them through Tumblr, and posting pictures of fan “non-compliant” tattoos within the pages of Bitch Planet. Author Keywords: Bitch Planet, comics, critical race studies, dystopia , gender studies, intersectional feminism
Uplifting Her Voice
This thesis creates an adaptation of act five, scene three of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus that reshapes the play by focusing on female empowerment through the character Lavinia. Specifically, by using other Shakespearean characters’ dialogue that can speak towards her situation, I have written a monologue and stage directions for Lavinia. The same patriarchal superstructures which existed in the West during the time of Shakespeare and at the time of the play’s setting—and which still exist today—ensure that Lavinia remains silenced. Through my adaptation, I aim to challenge these structures in a meaningful way by returning both voice and agency to Lavinia. Author Keywords: Adaptation, Agency, Metamorphosis, Patriarchy, Revenge, Voice
Ripe for the Taking
This thesis considers the fanfiction genres of slash-fiction, and Alpha/Beta/Omega fiction through an analysis of fandom’s embedded gift economy structures. Previous research on fanfiction and fandom structures have often characterized the gift economy nature of these spaces as countercultural and as separate from the frequent exploitation inherent in economic-based systems. There has been less attention paid to considering the potential disruptions that can come with unregulated and large-scale sharing. This thesis undertakes a critical discourse analysis of Alpha/Beta/Omega slash-fiction with a focus on commodity fetishism to reveal how the subgenre’s relationship with the fanfiction gift economy complicates and at times counters the conception of these spaces as a ‘queer utopia.’ The purpose of this research is to dismantle traditional archetypes within Alpha/Beta/Omega fanfiction by exploring how male Omegan characters become fetishized cultural commodity objects internally through interactions with Alpha characters and externally through the desires of fanfiction readers and writers. Author Keywords: Alpha/Beta/Omega, Commodity Fetishism, Fanfiction, Gift Economy, Queer Theory, Slash-fiction
Nutrient Management in Forest Management Planning
This research evaluates the degree to which nutrients are included in forest management planning. First, the thesis evaluates forest management plans globally to determine the extent to which countries consider key nutrients (N, P, Ca, Mg and K) in their forest management plans. This is followed by a case study in Muskoka, Ontario, of a pilot wood ash recycling program with the goal of restoring calcium and other nutrients in the forests. This pilot project aims to evaluate the benefits of using wood ash as a forest fertilizer, as evidence that the practice merits approval by the provincial government. A text-based literature analysis of current regulations and the Environmental Compliance Approval (appendix 3) submitted to the provincial government for this project was undertaken as this project is currently a not approved practice by the government. Interviews were completed with key stakeholders and experts in the field to understand the benefits and policy hurdles of this program. Based on the documents analysed in this study, it was concluded that both globally and in Canada, nutrient management is not the focus of forest management plans. With respect to the pilot wood ash program, this thesis concluded that there is not enough data published to make the government departments comfortable with approving wood ash as a soil fertilizer. Nevertheless, there is much community support and many perceived benefits to this project, but more supporting data is needed. Author Keywords: Forest, Nutrients, Sustainability, Wood-ash

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Graduate student theses produced at Trent University. You may also browse theses and dissertations by year, program, or author.

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