English

Institutional military strategists are developing theories of asymmetric and unconventional warfare that complicate the notion of strategic agency, the idea that military action emanates from a coherent agential source or subjectivity. This thesis attempts to push the conceptual trajectories of the theories of Hybrid War, Unrestricted War and Onto-power towards an even more radical complication of the notion of strategy - towards an ecological understanding of war as an unwinnable, self-perpetuating process. Recent geopolitical events are meticulously examined, as are institutional doctrinal and theoretical frameworks that stop just short of imploding the conventional agential notion of strategy. Insights from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, as well as Brian Massumi, particularly the concepts of multiplicity, assemblage, and ontopower, are employed in the thesis, which is itself a "heterogeneous assemblage" of elements ranging from Israeli war theory and Chinese military doctrine to etymology and post-structuralist philosophy.

Author Keywords: Agency, Assemblage, Deleuze, Hybrid warfare, Multiplicity, Strategy

We propose a stochastic weather model based on temperature, precipitation, humidity and wind speed for Qatar, as a representative arid region, in order to obtain simulated values for a drought index. As a drought index, the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) is commonly accepted in agriculture and is used to measure drought severity. It can be used to price weather derivatives to help farmers reduce nancial losses from drought. RDI, which is the ratio of precipitation to evapotranspiration, is calculated by considering crop growth stages. The use of dierent crop coecient value depending on the growth stage to calculate evapotranspiration can provide improved values for RDI. Additionally, six calculation methods for evapotranspiration using weather data are investigated to obtain accurate values for RDI.

Author Keywords: Evapotranspiration, Markov chains, Mean reversion processes, Reconnaissance Drought Index, Stochastic dierential equations, Stochastic weather models

Emmanuel Levinas' philosophy focuses on the idea that no human subject exists outside of their relationship to other people. Each of us holds a profound degree of responsibility to and for all others. Since responsibility is fundamental to human (co)existence, it does not impede on freedom but proves that the sovereign individual is a dangerous myth: any philosophical, political or economic system which places us in antagonism is inherently violent and arguably fallacious. Many instances of injustice and violence can be attributed to advances in technological rationality and other forces of modern egoism with historical roots. By forwarding a somewhat politicized interpretation of Totality and Infinity and drawing on Jacques Derrida's landmark reading of Levinas, this thesis explores the implications of Levinas' thought for modern politics and the potential of Levinasian ethics as a remedy for both the alienation of the modern subject and the continued justification of oppression.

Author Keywords: Ethics, Levinas, Other, Relation, Responsibility, Subjectivity

On Tilt: The Inheritance and Inheritors of Digital Games accepts and extends Eric Zimmerman's contention that literacies currently being developed during video-game play will be more broadly applicable (outside games) in the next hundred years as Western work, education, entertainment, and citizenship spaces become ever more shaped like video games.

To the end of better understanding both video games and the players and literacies contiguous with them, this dissertation interrogates comparisons between video games and... non-digital games, film and other fictional texts and worlds, blogs, casinos' games of chance, and the strategies employed by face-to-face criminals, always asking about the roles and responsibilities the human participants in these systems take; that is, this dissertation investigates what video games inherit from other forms of art, including non-digital games, and what the gamers and audience of today and tomorrow inherit through their contact with video games.

The dissertation examines in detail works by Jodi Dean, Bernard Suits, Bruce Sterling, T. L. Taylor, Walter Benjamin, Gavin de Becker, N. Katherine Hayles and Nicholas Gessler, and Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, considering their work, the video game, and gamers, in terms of power gaming, genre, fiction and suspension of disbelief, audience, motivations, fungibility, the zombie vs. the robot, value vs. meaning, agency, slipstream, capitalism, and ontology.

Ultimately, the dissertation suggests that there are two disparate strains of gamification building Zimmerman's future, arguing first that the penetration of video games into culture is changing the way we behave and exist as audience and more generally, and, second, that what is at stake, in terms of the attitudes, labels, and gameplay that we accept in terms of games and gamification is significant to what it means to be human, especially within systems that are only partly human, in the next hundred years.

Author Keywords: digital, gamification, genre, literacy, new media, videogame

The cyanidation technique is currently a viable technique for gold recovery that can replace the present amalgamation technique in Guyana. To implement this technique effectively, laboratory scale experiments and at scale runs were conducted to determine the best particle size of the ore, cyanide concentration, and leaching time. In addition, the profitability of cyanidation was compared to the amalgamation technique so as to describe the economic value of cyanidation. Results indicated that up to 94% of gold can be recovered from the ore using an ore particle size of 150 (105 µm), meshes, a cyanide concentration of 0.05% and leaching for 24 h. An economic comparison of this technique with the amalgamation technique indicated that although initial costs are high for the cyanidation technique, profits as high as 83% can be achieved after initializing this method whereas profits would be capped at approximately 25% for the amalgamation technique.

Keywords: gold recovery, cyanidation, mercury amalgamation, activated car

Author Keywords: activated carbon, cyanidation, gold recovery, mercury amalgamation

The Middle Formative Period (1000 – 400 B.C.) has increasing become recognized as a critical locus in the development of Lowland Maya socio-political complexity. This period witnessed the founding of numerous ceremonial centers, substantial material cultural innovation, and the advent of mortuary practices indicating developing social differentiation. Recent excavations at the site of Ka'Kabish in Northern Belize have uncovered evidence significantly strengthening this view. Excavations underlying Plaza D-South at Ka'Kabish have revealed a series of bedrock-hewn pits containing offering caches of thousands of shell beads, forty-seven greenstone objects, and extensive ceramic evidence indicating communal ritual and feasting, which is argued by the author to represent a cosmographic diorama of the cave-riddled Underworld. Significantly, this elaborate cosmographic offering event appears to center on the secondary, bundled bedrock-cist burial of an important personage and/or ancestor who is accompanied by a number of finely crafted jade ornaments representing motifs and forms that have previously been interpreted as symbols of authority, rulership, and divine kingship. Comparable contemporary evidence from Northern Belize and beyond has been interpreted through models foregrounding site-founding, place-making, ancestor veneration, and aggrandizer driven social differentiation. By integrating and contrasting these existing models with new evidence from Ka'Kabish, this thesis argues that the mortuary, caching, and architectural practices evidenced at Middle Formative Ka'Kabish represent a glimpse into the incipience of the ideological complex, the socio-cultural processes, and the material manifestations propagating the development of subsequent Maya socio-political complexity, specifically the institution of divine kingship or ch'uhul ahau.

Author Keywords: ancestor veneration, ancient Maya, greenstone cache, Ka'Kabish, Belize, Middle Formative, socio-political complexity

Ustilago maydis is a basidiomycete smut fungus and the causal agent of common smut of corn. Disease progression and fungal development in this pathogen occur in planta, terminating in the production of dormant teliospores. Dormant spores of many fungi are characterized by reduced metabolic activity, which is restored during spore germination. The transition out of dormancy requires the rapid translation of stored mRNAs, which may be stabilized through natural antisense transcript (NAT)-mediated mechanisms. Transcript analysis revealed that as-ssm1, a NAT to the mitochondrial seryl-tRNA synthetase (ssm1), is detected in the dormant teliospore and absent in haploid cells. Disruption of ssm1 leads to cell lysis, indicating it is essential for cellular viability. Presented data supports the hypothesis that as-ssm1 has a role in facilitating teliospore dormancy through stabilizing ssm1 transcripts, which reduces mitochondrial function. as-ssm1 expression during in planta development begins 10 days post-infection, coinciding with the first appearance of dormant teliospores. To assess the impact of as-ssm1 expression on cell division, virulence and mitochondrial function, as-ssm1 was ectopically expressed in haploid cells, leading to increased ssm1 transcript levels and the formation of double-stranded RNA. These expression mutants are characterized by attenuated growth rate, virulence, mitochondrial membrane potential and oxygen consumption. Together, these findings support a role for NATs in moderating mitochondrial function during the onset of teliospore dormancy.

Author Keywords: Dormant teliospore, Mitochondria, mRNA stability, Natural antisense transcripts, Non-coding RNA, Ustilago maydis

Interseeding legume cover crops in grain corn may improve the environmental sustainability of corn production system in Southern Ontario. This study aimed to assess the effects of legume species, nitrogen (N) fertilizer rate and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation on biomass and N requirement in a corn-legume system. Corn was grown with red clover (RCl), microclover (MCl), hairy vetch (HV), or beans at 10 and 80 kg N ha-1 rates with and without AMF inoculation in a greenhouse for 7 weeks. Corn dry matter (DM) and N uptake were reduced by beans and HV (average 35%) compared with control; however, the DM for beans and HV was 7 and 3 times higher than RCl and MCl, respectively. The N2 fixation ability was similar among legume species and no significant N transfer from legume was detected. Overall, species collection was critical to the success of incorporating legumes into grain corn production.

Author Keywords: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, corn, legume cover crop, nitrogen

Marine mammals with near-shore distributions are susceptible to human-related recreational and commercial disturbances, particularly near densely populated and industrialized coastal areas. A population of over 2,500 Chinese humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis chinensis) occupies the Pearl River Estuary in southern China. A part of this population uses Hong Kong's waters off of Lantau Island, where they are subjected to a number of anthropogenic threats, including vessel disturbance, fisheries interactions, and boat-based tourism. Previous research has shown that the abundance of this subspecies in Hong Kong's waters has declined about 60% since 2003. Using a combination of acoustic recordings, dolphin distribution and abundance data, and vessel traffic information I found that: 1) Four types of vessels common to the waters on Hong Kong generate noise that is audible to Sousa chinensis chinensis; 2) The spatial distribution of underwater noise in Hong Kong's waters does not significantly vary among the six sites sampled; 3) High-speed ferry traffic and passenger volume has increased dramatically during the study period; 4) There has been a significant decline in dolphin density in areas within and near vessel traffic; and 5) Dolphins are most at risk of vessel collisions and being exposed to vessel noise near Fan Lau and within the Urmston Road waterway just northeast of the Sha Chau and Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park . These results can inform future acoustic studies on this species and guide conservation and management efforts in Hong Kong.

Author Keywords: Human impacts, Humpback dolphin, Management, Noise, Sousa chinensis chinensis, Vessel traffic

Giardia intestinalis is a protozoan parasite that causes waterborne diarrheal disease in animals and humans. It is an unusual eukaryote as it lacks the capacity for heme biosynthesis; nonetheless it encodes heme proteins, including three cytochrome b5 isotypes (gCYTB5s) of similar size. Homology modelling of their structures predicts increased heme pocket polarity compared to mammalian isotypes, which would favour the oxidized state

and lower their reduction potentials (E°'). This was confirmed by spectroelectrochemical experiments, which measured E°' of -171 mV, -140 mV and -157 mV for gCYTB5-I, II, III respectively, compared to +7 mV for bovine microsomal cytochrome b5. To explore the influence of heme pocket polarity in more detail, five gCYTB5-I mutants in which polar residues were replaced by nonpolar residues at one of three positions were investigated.

While these substitutions all increased the reduction potential, replacement of a conserved tyrosine residue at position-61 with phenylalanine had the most significant effect, raising E°' by 106 mV. This tyrosine residue occurs in all gCYTB5s and is likely the greatest contributor to their low reduction potentials. Finally, complementary substitutions were made into a bovine microsomal cytochrome b5 triple mutant to lower its reduction potential. These not only lowered the E°' by more than 140 mV but also weakened the interaction of heme with the protein. The lower reduction potentials of the gCYTB5s may indicate that these proteins have different roles from their more well-known mammalian counterparts.