The proposal of this thesis will be threefold: firstly, to study the phenomenon and structure of power in relation to Argentine drama during the period of the 1960s to the 1980s as exemplified by various works from two leading Argentine dramatists of this period; secondly, elaborating and specifying from the these works, to investigate certain determined manifestations of power, for example, discourse manipulation, hierarchies, violence, discipline, and torture, and the expression and presentation of these manifestations of power in dramatic form; thirdly, I will analyze the relation between political theatricality and power, and the reflections of this phenomenon in the chosen plays. The four elements which will be the focus of this thesis, and in many ways, will help weave the chapers together are: 1) Internalization of the Master's Discourse 2) Process and Effects of Torture 3) Evolution of Space 4) Metatheatricality These elements are found in all the chapters, even though, some with a more discernable presence than others. Through the discussion of the plays and these four elements I hope to construct an investigation which illuminates the process and relationship between theatre and politics. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

To predict the behavior of municipal wastewater treatment facilities, the Activated Sludge Model No. 1 is often used. This model has also served as the basis for the development of many other models to determine the behavior of activated sludge systems treating municipal wastewater, and has also been extended to the development of a model for petrochemical activated sludge treatment systems. Application of the model requires the determination of kinetic parameters and wastewater composition using continuous culture laboratory scale activated sludge reactors. These systems are laborious to operate and are equipment intensive. Activated sludge systems are a commonly used method of secondary treatment of pulp mill effluents in British Columbia. The application of the Activated Sludge Model No. 1 has not been extended previously to predict the performance of carbon oxidation in activated sludge systems treating pulp mill effluent. The objective of this study was to establish a database of experimental information on the characteristics of activated sludge systems treating bleached Kraft pulp mill wastewater using simple on-site batch test methods. Batch test methods involving respirometry and chemical oxygen demand measurements were successful in generating a data set of wastewater and biomass characteristics comparable to those found in the literature. Development of a dynamic mechanistic model based on the data generated in this study will provide a framework for studying the behavior of pulp mill activated sludge systems and provide a basis for planning further experimentation. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate

This thesis concerns the quantification of the prism light guide's fundamental diffraction limit, by means of numerical simulation. A new technique is developed to model the intrinsically 3D problem of an off-axis incident plane striking the prism light guide wall, in a reduced 2D treatment which retains all the physics of the original problem. In order to study this system, a computer code is developed based on the Finite-Difference Time-Domain algorithm, and its accuracy is verified by modeling test systems having known analytical solutions. The system is then applied to the dimensionally reduced prism light guide problem. As expected, the numerical calculations show an approximate linear relation between the diffraction loss per reflection off the prism light guide wall A and the ratio of radiation wavelength to prism size, — . Previously, the ratio of a X loss fraction to — was unknown, and this work for the first time establishes the a ratio to be approximately 0.75, which is an encouraging result which means that prism light guides can be improved considerably relative to those manufactured today. A video tape showing the animation of diffraction process is provided. Two methods are then presented to attempt to reduce the diffraction losses. The first, re-shaping of the corners of the prisms in the prism light guide wall, does not show any improvement. However the second, in which metallic reflectors are placed just outside the prism corners, does reduce diffraction loss to some extent. This suggests that further research work is warranted to further reduce diffraction losses in a Prism Light Guide. / Science, Faculty of / Physics and Astronomy, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this research was to collect detailed demographic information concerning the early life stages of antelope bitterbrush Purshia tridentata and elucidate those biotic and abiotic factors limiting or enhancing seed dispersal, seedling emergence and survival. Agricultural and urban development have seriously reduced the size and continuity of natural areas in the Okanagan valley, British Columbia. Antelope bitterbrush has its most northern distribution in this setting and this study was initiated to address questions concerning the ability of this shrub to persist in the face of rapid change. The research was undertaken in three parts represented by the separate chapters of this manuscript; Chapter 1 a survey of juvenile plants, Chapter 2 a seed removal experiment and Chapter 3 a reciprocal planting experiment. In 1994 I estimated the density of juvenile Purshia shrubs at ten separate sites. This indicated significant variation in seedling establishment between sites and provided the basis for 2 separate lines of research. First, I placed Purshia seeds into the field at feeding stations to determine what class of seed eating animals, insects, birds or rodents, were responsible for seed predation. Seed predation was mostly due to nocturnal rodents some of which, through caching behaviour, also acted as effective agents of seed dispersal. Secondly, 8,000 seeds were planted individually 2.25 cm beneath the soil surface. Environmental factors explained 40 % of the variation in seedling emergence while variation between maternal families accounted for 16 %. Seedling emergence correlated negatively with silt content of soils and positively with moss cover. Shrubs that on average produced seeds with a higher nitrogen content also produced seeds that were less likely to emerge. In silty soils initial seedling emergence appeared to be limited by crusting at the soil surface. However, soils with higher silt content contained more seedlings at the end of the first year, presumably due to greater moisture availability. The correlation between moss cover and seedling emergence provides some evidence that cryptogamic crusts confer conditions favourable to seedling establishment. Knowledge of factors limiting seedling establishment is required to manage and where appropriate to restore Purshia shrubs in the highly impacted landscape of the south Okanagan valley. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

Violence against women in Canada affects thousands daily, taking the forms of physical, sexual, emotional, psychological and financial abuse, and murder. Organizations that work with these women contain power in the form of resources, vested societal legitimacy and authority, endowing them with tremendous potential for the transformation of a status-quo that perpetuates - through unconsciousness or design - a violent society, resulting in the oppression of women. Interorganizational coordination is a postmodernist technology of action that has been shown, in past research, to ameliorate and even remedy the causes and effects of a fragmented organizational community through reactive and proactive coordinative behaviours. This study used three research methodologies to explore the community of organizations within the City of Richmond, B.C. Results showed a climate that was lacking in specialized or support services for women, in policies and protocols regarding violence, in information exchange among service providers and to women, as well as a disparity in the standards and levels of professional training. There was also an emphasis on the roles and responsibilities of organizations concerning violence against women. Interorganizational coordination in the City of Richmond has already alleviated some of these concerns and, through continued short-term problem-solving and long-term visionary planning, has the potential of instigating dynamic and progressive change at many levels through a catalytic alliance, or negotiated solidarity for the purposes of societal transformation. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This thesis was a sociological, historically informed, study of the interactions between three key variables over a two hundred year period. These variables were the changing nature of asylum- based care of the mentally ill, the epistemological and professional dominance of the psychiatric profession, and changing periods of mental health legislation. Specifically, the study examined how historical and contemporary tensions between the perspectives of psychiatry and law have been manifested in British Columbia, and with what consequences. Two qualitative methodological approaches were utilised. Data was obtained principally by historical analysis, A secondary component of the study was four exploratory-descriptive, in-depth interviews with mental health consumer-activists. These interviews were conducted to explore their beliefs regarding involuntary detention and treatment. The origins of the asylum were traced in the U.K., America, and Canada. Changes in nineteenth and twentieth century strategies concerning the management of the mentally disordered were examined in terms of the dialectical interaction between the identified variables. Using British Columbia as a case study, reasons for the discontinuous decline of the asylum in the twentieth century were analysed. In particular, the emergence and consequences of a contemporary dichotomy in the mental health discourse, summarised as "rights" vs "treatment", was examined. Findings showed that mental health legislative reform is initiated in order to facilitate major changes in the management of the mentally disordered. Such changes were shown to have centred around attempts to manage the enduring consequences of the asylum. The influence of the psychiatric profession was shown to be relative to the over-arching economic and social control objectives of the State. The dichotomy of treatment vs rights was suggested to be the latest manifestation of the historical tension between psychiatry and law. The contention was made that the dichotomy is essentially false. Implications for social work and social policy were discussed and suggestions for future research made. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

When navigating through large-scale information spaces, users may lose track of their location and experience the sensation of being “lost in hyperspace”. A common solution applied to this problem is the graphical user interface, using windows to keep track of the pages visited, to show overview maps of the information space, and to highlight information “landmarks”, all of them serving the user as reminders in support of the task at hand. My thesis focuses on two different types of memory or memory processes--implicit and explicit-- and explores how these may be harnessed in the design of human-computer interfaces. Explicit memory is reflected in tests of conscious recall or recognition of a past event or experience. Implicit memory is revealed through improved performance on tasks that do not require conscious or intentional recollection of previously studied information. I carried out an experiment that used a menu-item selection task, with window arrangement and text justification as the independent variables, where both implicit and explicit memory were assessed. Implicit memory testing focused on the acquisition of a menu-item selection skill under different menu-item mapping conditions; explicit memory testing required recollecting the correct position of target menu-items with the aid of previously seen window displays. Forty undergraduate student volunteers served as subjects. The implicit memory test results showed no effects due to various window arrangement and text justification manipulations. By contrast, explicit memory test performance showed an overall increase in menu-item selection accuracy, an improvement in accuracy across trials, and in addition, it also showed a significant difference in selection accuracy with left- versus right-justified text. The discussion focuses on various aspects of these findings; it explores limits of the present study and outlines plans for future investigations, as well as implications for window management and information presentation. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

Many women have shared with family lawyers such as myself their stories about how the legal system marginalized their maternal connections and child caregiving experiences by imposing on them legal positions and constructs about mothering and caring that differed from the reality of their experiences. This thesis develops the argument that neither the litigation nor the mediation of child custody disputes in Canada address the systemic problems association with the marginalization of women. Both processes reflect white, male, middle class, heterosexual expressions, productions and perpetuations of patriarchy. I first define the dominant ideology of motherhood and present differing mothering experiences which more accurately reflect the realities of caregiving. I then deconstruct the legal and social methods used in both the litigation and mediation of child custody in order to demonstrate their use of dominant ideologies of motherhood and family to limit women’s caregiving opportunities. From the context of two women’s legal experiences, I explore the possibility of introducing feminist legal methods into mediation and litigation in recognition of the fact that women must engage with the legal system to address the practicalities of childcare, economics and shelter. I respond to the popular argument that mediation is a panacea to the ills of litigation by taking the position that both are situated along a continuum perpetuating the same ideological assumptions about mothers and family which oppress all women to some degree. I argue that mediation is ultimately more oppressive to women because unlike litigation, systemic problems in mediation are obscured by romanticism and rhetoric. Firstly, I attempt a mother and child reunion by trying to create a place for feminist conceptions of caregiving within child custody litigation and mediation which would empower women. I conclude that it will be difficult to create a space for feminist methodology in custody litigation and mediation without the continued efforts of lawyers to reconstruct the ideology of mother. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

Many biologically active compounds are first formed as inactive precursors. Their activation results from proteolytic cleavage, largely accomplished by a group of enzymes known as KEX2/subtilisin-like proprotein convertases, or kexins. This family of enzymes has been described in a number of species, from prokaryotes (B. subtilis), to unicellular eukaryotes (S. cerevisiae), as well as multicellular organisms (Drosophila, mouse, human). Recently, an additional member of this convertase family was identified in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (Peters et al, 1991). The gene encoding the proprotein protease (bli-4) produces four distinct protein isoforms, all of which show sequence similarity to members of the kexin family. The purpose of the series of experiments reported here was twofold. First, to determine whether there was a conservation of function between the four isoenzymes produced by the gene bli-4 and kexin members from S. cerevisiae and humans. In order to achieve this goal, I have tested two putative homologues of bli-4, KEX2 and hfur, for functional rescue of the viable blistering mutation in bli- 4. The second goal of this research was to analyze the control of bli-4 expression. To address this question, deletion analysis of the 5' flanking DNA was performed, searching for critical regions that may function in the control of timing and tissue specificity of bli-4. The approach taken to address the question of functional conservation of the four isozymes of bli-4 and other members of the kexin family took advantage of the ability to genetically transform C. elegans through germline injection. A genomic fragment containing the yeast gene KEX2 (provided by R. Fuller, Stanford, CA) and a cDNA clone of the human gene hfur (provided by G. Thomas, Portland, OR) were cloned into an ectopic expression vector carrying a heat-shock promoter (provided by A. Fire, Carnegie). The heat shock promoter (P. Candido, University of British Columbia) expresses in many of the same tissues as bli-4. A cDNA clone of one of the BLI-4 isoforms was used as a positive control. These constructs were injected into the gonad of bli-4(e937) homozygous hermaphrodites. Progeny of injected worms were heat-shocked to induce expression of the transgenes, and then screened for phenotypic rescue. In addition to this approach, functional rescue of S. cerevisiae KEX2 deletion mutants using one bli-4 isoform was tested. The isoform chosen has a predicted structure similar to the native yeast kex2p. However, this construct, when expressed in yeast, did not rescue KEX2 mutants, even though the control experiment using a KEX2 clone did rescue the mutants. Analysis of the 5' flanking region of bli-4 was performed by creating serial deletions in a bli-4/lacZ fusion construct. These vectors were then injected into wild-type worms and transgenics stained with Xgal to determine location of expression. This analysis revealed that there are a possible five signals controlling both tissue specificity and timing of bli-4 expression. The results of this series of experiments show 1) that the functional role of bli-4 is conserved with yeast KEX2 and human hfiir, and 2) that the control of expression of bli-4 can be at least partly explained by sequences in the 5' flanking DNA region. These conclusions emphasize the importance of C. elegans as a model organism for the study of the kexin family of convertases. / Medicine, Faculty of / Medical Genetics, Department of / Graduate

Opus 25 is a collection of compositions which I created between September 1995 and April 1997. Instrumentation varies; there are works for choirs, chamber ensembles, solo voice, solo harp, solo piano, and orchestra. All the works included in this collection have been performed at some point during this same period, and recordings of these performances can be found on the accompanying cassette. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Includes 1 sound cassette / Graduate