This practicum focuses on end-of-life care for older adults in rural Canada. Specifically, it addresses links between domesticity and terminal illness amongst adults within the building typology of hospice. The objective of the practicum is the creation of a model for hospice design in rural Manitoba. The hospice will be supported in pre-fabricated housing. The practicum will address contemporary issues arising from publicly-funded healthcare, the aging Canadian population, and cultural issues surrounding dying, death, and grieving. The main goals to be achieved with this project were the creation of care facilities that encourage dialogue, education, and wellbeing for all users. Additionally, the facilities will be designed as multi-sensory environments where all human senses can be stimulated, expanding beyond typical visual stimuli.

Background/Project Description: There is a growing interest in the contribution of late preterm (34 – 36 week gestational age (GA)) birth to neonatal morbidity and mortality. Late preterm infants have an increased incidence of both respiratory and non- respiratory complications over the first year of life. Rates of prematurity as well as morbidity/mortality in infancy are higher in lower socioeconomic status (SES) groups but how GA and SES interact is relatively unexplored. Methods/Participant Population: A retrospective cohort study was undertaken utilizing anonymized data housed at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP). A population-based cohort of infants born at 34 to 41 weeks of GA was assembled; individual and area-level income information was used to develop SES groups. Outcomes studied included diagnoses received during the birth hospitalisation, neonatal and post-neonatal admissions. Regression models were constructed to explore the effects of GA and SES as well as control for multiple perinatal variables. Appropriate approvals and safeguards for data privacy were maintained. Results: GA and SES exerted a gradient effect on morbidity, which persisted after controlling for multiple confounding variables. The effect of GA was strongest during the birth hospitalisation but persisted throughout the first year with increased morbidity evident with each week of decreasing GA. The detrimental association of low SES with morbidity increased in effect size throughout the first year surpassing that of GA for post-neonatal admissions. An interaction effect of maternal diabetes, respiratory morbidity and SES was suggested and merits further investigation. Neonatal stays of 3 days or longer negated the association of GA with readmission within the first 28 days; in addition shorter stay infants had the highest risks of readmission at 37 weeks as compared to the late preterm gestations. Conclusions: The consistent associations between poverty, prematurity and morbidity require both further study and attention. Attention to the neonatal health of both late preterm and term infants is important due to their large numbers and population impact. The added risk of poverty merits urgent and multifaceted interventions to lay the groundwork for healthy childhood and long-term success.

Migrating from a wired to a wireless implementation for communication system used in industrial applications is a logical move to avoid the many shortcomings associated with wires. When operated under harsh environments, those wires can break and could cause not only damage to the system but also endanger human lives. However, it is not well documented how well a wireless protocol can work under such harsh industrial environments. This thesis attempts to answer this research question in the point of view of gauging the performance of a wireless protocol under the influence of electromagnetic noise. More specifically, the type of noise signal that is the focus of this investigation is the random, pulsed type (e.g., discharges caused by sparking) that creates a hyperbolic broadband disturbance in the frequency domain. Consequently, a fractal noise model is used to study noise of this nature. The steps toward achieving this goal include: requirements gathering, wireless technology selection; noise modelling and synthesis; real noise capture and analysis to validate the chosen noise model; high-frequency fractal noise emulation in hardware; the use of a novel noise injection method for empirical work; and the conducting of a controlled synthetic noise-to-wireless node performance evaluation to obtain performance measure in the form of packet error rate (PER). Performance data in terms of PER versus signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for various nodes separation have been collected. There were three significant findings: the obtained performance curves follow the standard 'S' trend; for a specific desired reliability (denoted by a certain PER), the SNR at the transmitter needs to be boosted as the correlation of the noise being present increases; and the maximum distance between nodes separation for a certain reliability to be achieved depends exponentially with the transmitter‟s SNR. The relationship in the third finding assists in placement of wireless nodes, which in turn can determine the minimum amount of wireless nodes required for an industrial system to reach the desired system reliability, thus boasting network cost saving.

Kyasanur Forest Disease Virus (KFDV) is a tick-borne, hemorrhagic fever-causing member of the Flaviviridae. With infections annually ranging from 50 to 1000 people in south-west India and the lack of effective treatments, a better understanding of this virus is needed. The development of a Reverse Genetics System for KFDV would provide the opportunity to address these issues in future studies. Using molecular techniques, the KFDV genome sequence was elucidated and the reverse genetics system was created. Utilizing this system live, infectious KFDV particles were produced from mammalian cell culture, thereby validating the success of the reverse genetics system. The implementation of this system will enable researchers to better study pathogenesis and disease progression, virus-host interplay, virion structure, genome replication and the emergence of effective therapeutics and vaccines.

The objective of this research project was to simulate the behavior of armor metals at high strain rates and large strains, using the Johnson-Cook visco-plastic model, while incorporating the formation of adiabatic shear bands. The model was then to be applied to three armor metals, namely maraging steel 300, high hardness armor (HHA), and aluminum alloy 5083-H131; supplied by the Canadian Department of National Defense and tested in compression at the University of Manitoba. The Johnson-Cook model can accurately simulate the behavior of BCC metal (steels) up to a point of thermal instability. Conditions for complete shear failure in the model match closely to conditions at which adiabatic shear bands formed in specimens tested experimentally. The Johnson-Cook model is not quite valid for FCC metals, such as aluminum, where strain rate and temperature effects are dependent on the strain while in the Johnson-Cook model, these parameters are separable.

An experimental study was carried out to determine the effect of compaction on arching of wheat flour in storage. A model bin 475 mm in height and 600 mm × 375 mm in cross-section was used to conduct tests and wheat flour at moisture contents (MC) of 8.6% and 14.2% was tested. Direct shear tests were performed to determine the angle of internal friction and cohesion of wheat flour subjected to various compaction pressures. It was observed that the internal friction angles were about the same for the wheat flour at two moisture contents (37.1 vs. 37.5), but cohesion for 14.2% MC was 32% higher than that for 8.6% MC. The flowability of wheat flour decreased with increasing compaction pressure sharply at the initial stage of compaction. Compaction led to a 64% increase in required hopper opening for arching-free flow for flour at 8.6% MC, and 49% at 14.2% MC. However, compaction pressure had little effect on arch formation after it reached above 5 kPa.

This thesis describes the experimental study of electron scattering processes from laser-excited barium and ytterbium atoms. These include the electron-impact ionization-excitation from Ba (...6s6p) 1P1 and Ba (...6s5d) 1,3D1,2 to Ba+ (...6p) 2P3/2, the elastic electron scattering from Ba (...6s6p) 1P1 and Ba (...6s5d) 1,3D1,2, and the electron-impact excitation from Yb (...6s6p) 3P1 to Yb (...6s7s) 3S1, Yb (...6s6p) 1P1, and Yb (...6s5d) 3D1,2,3. The experiments utilized electron impact energies in the range of 5 eV to 50 eV. Differential and integral scattering cross sections were determined, and are presented both on absolute and relative scales. By controlling the laser polarization, alignment and orientation parameters characterizing the scattering processes were determined. Additionally, the barium ionization-excitation study observed polarization dependencies of ion line emission fluorescence for radiative decay from Ba+ (...6p) 2P3/2 to Ba+ (...6s) 2S1/2, providing information about the final ionic state composition. Along with experimental measurements of electron-atom collisions, this thesis describes the design and development of a computer-controlled data acquisition system and a laser frequency stabilization system.

One response by the Manitoba Government to STI/HIV rates among its youth has been the support of a Youth Health Education Service named Teen Talk. Teen Talk has developed two programs, the Workshops for Youth Program and the Peer Support Program. In this mixed methods research study, the barriers and facilitators to implementing the Peer Support Program (PS) beyond the limits of the City of Winnipeg and the impact of the PS training on its participants were documented. The results were organized into categories and diagrams were created. It was concluded that in order for the PS training to best meet the needs of its rural and northern participants, Teen Talk needs to become a part of larger community wide initiatives. Within Teen Talk a paradigm shift needs to occur where rural and northern training sessions are acknowledged as separate entities and appropriate financial and human resources are allocated.

In the midst of the chaos and violence of civil-ethnic conflict, there is often little attention paid to the economic consequences which endure long past the moment of crisis. In conflicts that end in situations of prolonged occupation of one national group over another, complex and enduring dependencies develop between occupier and occupied. Since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinian economy has grown highly dependent upon the Israeli economy and has developed within the confines of Israeli military power. When the second Palestinian Intifada broke out in September 2000, the Palestinian economy suffered further. This paper discusses the Palestinian economy through the framework of dependency theory and world-systems analysis. Both theories are used to explain the complex relationship between Israel and the Palestinians and the relationship of dependence that has been perpetuated by Israel since the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993.

This thesis examines the evolution of archival theory in light of the ascendance of human rights in Western society. Archives are situated as integral instruments in the protection of human rights within a Western context due to the European preference towards written evidence and bureaucratic systems. The thesis uses a negative case study to demonstrate the power of the record in affecting the human rights of citizens, but also situates access to the government archive among human rights.