Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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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
Deep learning for removal of non-resonant background in CARS hyperspectroscopy
In this work, a deep learning approach proposed by Valensise et al. [3] for extracting Raman resonant spectra from measured broadband CARS spectra was explored to see how effective it is at removing NRB from our experimentally measured “spectral-focusing”-based approach to CARS. A large dataset of realistic simulated CARS spectra was used to train a model capable of performing this spectral retrieval task. The non-resonant background shape used in creating the simulated CARS spectra was altered, to mimic our experimentally measured NRB response. Two models were trained: one using the original approach (Specnet) and one using the updated NRB “Specnet Plus”, and then tested their ability to retrieve the vibrationally resonant spectrum from simulated and measured CARS spectra. An error analysis was performed to compare the model's retrieval performance on two simulated CARS spectra. The modified model's mean squared error value was five and two times lower for the first and second simulated CARS spectra, respectively. Specnet Plus was found to be more effective at extracting the resonant signals. Finally, the NRB extraction abilities of both models are tested on two experimentally measured CARS hyperspectroscopy samples (starch and chitin), with the updated NRB model (Specnet Plus) outperforming the original Specnet model. These results suggest that tailoring the approach to reflect what we observe experimentally will improve our spectral analysis workflow and increase our imaging potential. Author Keywords:
Effect of Attending a Virtual Oncology Camp on Childhood Cancer Patient's Pyshcosocial Functioning and Parental Stress - A Pilot Study
Objectives/purpose: The current study examined whether attending a 1-month virtual oncology camp (VOC) improved resilience and hope in childhood cancer patients and parental/caregiver stress. Methods:Childhood cancer patients/survivors and their parent/caregivers enrolled for VOC, participated in an online anonymous survey: before, after and 3-months after VOC. The survey included the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) and the Snyder’s Children’s Hope Scale (CHS) for the childhood cancer patients/survivors and the Pediatric Inventory for Parents (PIP) for parent/caregivers. Results:CYRM scores increased from T1 to T2 (d=0.86). Compared to T1, at T2 CHS scores also increased (d=1.33). Both CHS and CYRM scores remained higher at T3 compared with T1 (d=1.34; d=0.86). There were no changes in PIP scores between any time points. Conclusion and significance: Our study demonstrated that participation in a VOC improved children’s resilience and hope but did not change parental stress. Highlighting the clinical significance of these VOCs and the impacts they have on childhood cancer patients/survivors. Author Keywords: cancer, children, hope, parental stress, resilience, virtual oncology camp
Anishinaabemowin Teacher Perspectives of Indigenous Language Instruction in Nogojiwanong Public Schools
This thesis explores the importance of Indigenous languages and their revitalization, as well as the roles and responsibilities of schools through the perspective of Anishinaabemowin public school teachers in the Nogojiwanong, Peterborough ON, area. Three teachers were interviewed and have shared valuable insight into how they became teachers, how the language is taught in their schools, and the challenges associated with teaching these classes in these settings, as well as who should be learning and how these languages will bring us forward. From this information, recommendations for schools, school boards, and policy makers are included to better support instructors and students. Author Keywords: Anishinaabemowin, Indigenous, Indigenous Languages, Language Revitalization, Public Schools, Schools
Exploring Vulnerability to Food Insecurity
Addressing the issue of food insecurity effectively within a region in a way where interventions reflect the variability of food insecurity levels across subgroups of the population is important. It is a unique challenge and requires specific data. This study took in this direction by conducting an exploratory statistical analysis of a community-representative dataset of Inuit Seniors’ food (in)security. The analysis was theoretically sensitive as well as knowledge-user-directed.Results show that 52.7% of all Seniors in Nain and Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, are food insecure, and that food (in)security is associated with age group, education status, health status, mobility status and household financial situation. Further, younger Seniors aged 55-64 are more likely to be food insecure than their older peers. This study is among the first to provide an analysis of quantitative associations between variables that characterize food (in)security among a specific subgroup in the Inuit population. Author Keywords: Arctic, Case study, Food security, Inuit health, Seniors, Vulnerability
Active layer thermal regime in subarctic wetlands at the southern edge of continuous permafrost in Canada
The fine-scale controls of active layer dynamics in the subarctic at the southern edge of continuous permafrost are currently poorly understood. The goal of this thesis was to understand how environmental conditions associated with upland tundra heath, open graminoid fen, and palsas/peat plateaus affected active layer thermal regime in a subarctic peatland in northern Canada. Indices of active layer thermal regime were derived from in-situ measurements of ground temperature and related to local measurements of air temperature, snow depth, and surface soil moisture. Active layer thaw patterns differed among landforms, with palsas and tundra heath having the least and greatest amount of thaw, respectively. Tundra heath thaw patterns were influenced by the presence of gravel and sandy soils, which had higher thermal conductivity than the mineral and organic soils of fens and palsas. Vegetation also influenced thaw patterns; the lichen cover of palsas better protected the landform from incoming solar radiation than the moss, lichen, and low-lying shrub cover of upland tundra heath, thus allowing for cooler ground temperatures. Air temperature was the most significant predictor of active layer thermal regime. Surface soil moisture varied among landforms and greater surface soil moisture reduced the amount of active layer thaw. These findings improved understanding of how landform and climate can interact to affect the active layer. Author Keywords: Active layer thermal regime, Active layer thickness, Climate change, Peatland, Permafrost, Subarctic
Digital Labour and Working From Home
This thesis examines the impact that digital labour and work from home have across different populations. This work is framed with regards to Marxist-feminism and particularly examines the impact of work from home across different genders. To demonstrate the depth and breadth of the impact that work from home has on worker agency, four unique industries are analyzed: office jobs, gig economy, affect labour, and sex work. Additionally, the lens of critical race theory is invoked to highlight the distinct challenges that BIPOC workers face in the transition to digital labour. This thesis would not be contemporary without addressing the COVID-19 pandemic which was occurring during the time of its writing. This thesis uses those established lenses of gender, industry, and race to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workplace and home (office). Work from home increases the amount of labour that needs to be performed by each worker in exchange for some flexibility and agency in some domains. Author Keywords: Covid-19, Digital Labour, Hybrid, Work from Home
Machine Learning for Aviation Data
This thesis is part of an industry project which collaborates with an aviation technology company on pilot performance assessment. In this project, we propose utilizing the pilots' training data to develop a model that can recognize the pilots' activity patterns for evaluation. The data will present as a time series, representing a pilot's actions during maneuvers. In this thesis, the main contribution is focusing on a multivariate time series dataset, including preprocessing and transformation. The main difficulties in time series classification is the data sequence of the time dimension. In this thesis, I developed an algorithm which formats time series data into equal length data. Three classification and two transformation methods were used. In total, there are six models for comparison. The initial accuracy was 40%. By optimization through resampling, we increased the accuracy to 60%. Author Keywords: Data Mining, K-NN, Machine Learning, Multivariate Time Series Classification, Time Series Forest
On Forests, Witness Trees, and Bears
This dissertation is about Forests, their loss and the grieving that arises from their loss. The loss of ancient and old-growth forests by way of clearcutting and or anthropogenically driven disturbances, including climate change, presents the quandary of loss of both biological and cultural diversity. Following Umeek’s/E. Richard Atleo’s term, I suggest that “dis-ease” in the dominant relationship to forests in parts of the Western world significantly rests within inherited cultural and political pasts at play in the present, carried in much of the language and lifeways of modern Anglophone societies today. I do so by a critical topographical exploration of thematic patterns that go back to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest written account of deforestation in the history of Western civilization. I offer at the center of my inquiry a collection of witness trees as North American case studies. Each tree is a witness object, a station from which I confront and explore social-ecological grief as it has accumulated over time from English colonization, with one focusing on Indigenous cultural reclamation and place-based ecological co-management. Lastly, I turn to a multispecies exploration of social-ecological grief, using bears in North America as a face for reflection and consider who and what more is lost when old forests are degraded and gone. By asking the place question—“what place is this?”—of forests, or the Forest Question, my dissertation is thus an exploration of the connection and responsibilities to other place-based human and other-than-human communities in a rapidly changing climate. Author Keywords: critical topography, environmental grief, forests, multispecies, social-ecological relations, witness trees
Great Liberation (or Standing Up, Laying Down)
This thesis presents a critical history of stand-up comedy alongside rhetorical analyses of specific stand-up routines and performances to argue for stand-up’s efficacy as a therapeutic artform. Through analysis of the history, function, and content of satire, this thesis presents stand-up comedy as an artform utilized for more than just simple laughter. Stand-up comedy, as a form and genre, provides the unique ability to engage with difficult subject matter, traumatic experiences, and offense for the benefit of both listener and audience in a way that subverts, therapizes, and equalizes instances of discrimination, trauma, and denigration. Author Keywords: Abjection, Offense, Satire, Stand-up Comedy, Therapy
Speaking of Being
The central question of this research is “What is poetry?” The ambiguity and unintelligibility of the question itself forces the writing to take two different approaches to it. The first approach is to define poetry not by what it is but by how it is related to the human being and to the world. Seeing poetry as its relation to Being allows a definition of poetry based on its function. This approach draws on philosophical discussions how poetry is related to the human and how Being can be extended into poetic creation. Martin Heidegger’s move from seeing poetry as the possibility of worldmaking to seeing it as a place of dwelling, and, in his later works, as unconcealment and the extension of Being as the House of Being, marks the direction of philosophical discussions in this paper. In this sense, poetry is defined as a creative possibility, where the speaking being comes in close contact with the speaking things and speaks of being.The second approach is to define poetry not as a whole but as some of its essential parts, as “poetic imagination” for instance. This attempt to define the poetic imagination draws on long-running discussions of imagination, metaphor, metaphorical thinking, image and imaging. It also relies on Freud’s discussions of how dreams function as textual phenomena: the poetic imagination, this approach argues, is similar to dreaming. The poet’s conscious and unconscious engagements with language create an uncanny experience where the relation between object and its poetic image is simultaneously known and unknowable. The third part of this study focuses on Lacan’s move from the symbolic unconscious to the real unconscious, in order to shed light on how the real is related to its linguistic reality. This brings the discussion to a point where language is replaced by lalangue in order to knot the real directly to the symbolic. Author Keywords: poetic creation, poetic imagination, poetry
Oil is Thicker than Justice
This thesis provides a comprehensive overview of the extractive industry operating out of the Alberta tar sands region to determine how environmental violence is enacted against Indigenous women, girls, and queer or Two-Spirit peoples in the Lubicon Lake Cree Nation and beyond. Through an analysis of existing literature in the field, a case study on the Lubicon Lake Nation and a policy analysis of the Calls for Justice from the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, this thesis draws links between industrialization, capitalism, the heteropatriarchy, and colonialism. Finally, this thesis offers a pathway to resurgence, through the subversion of colonial gender and sexual norms, and collective action to reclaim Indigenous territory as an alternative to state-sponsored solutions and policies. Author Keywords: Colonial heteropatriarchy, Environmental violence, Land Back, Lubicon Lake, Tar sands, Violence against Indigenous women

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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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