Introduction: Oil/gas communities across Northeastern British Columbia are experiencing rapid in-migration of young, primarily male workers in response to an economic ‘boom’ in the oil/gas sectors. Accompanying the ‘boom’ has been a rise in rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among young people, with Chlamydia rates among youth in the Northeast exceeding the provincial average by 22%. Previous research indicates that socio-cultural and structural determinants of youth sexual behaviour and access to STI testing are important for understanding youth sexual health disparities – and represent key targets for STI prevention efforts. No other research has explored STIs in this rapidly developing, under-resourced context. Therefore, objectives of this thesis were to: (1) Examine how socio-cultural and structural features related to the oil/gas ‘boom’ affect the sexual behaviour of young people in Fort St. John (FSJ), BC; (2) Gather the perspectives of youth and their service providers on the socio-cultural and structural barriers to STI testing in FSJ; (3) Develop recommendations to improve the accessibility of STI testing. Results: Participants identified 4 main ways in which the socio-cultural and structural conditions created by the ‘boom’ affect sexual behaviours, fuelling the spread of STIs in FSJ: mobility of oil/gas workers; binge partying; high levels of disposable income; and gendered power dynamics. As well, 5 key barriers to STI testing among youth were identified: limited opportunities for access; geographic inaccessibility; local social norms; limited information; and negative interactions with providers. Discussion: These data indicate that the conditions fostered by the ‘boom’ in FSJ exacerbate sexual health inequalities among young people. They can be more widely contextualized as an example of the unintended – but not unexpected – health and social implications of a resource-extraction ‘boom’, illustrating the fallacy of ‘development’ as representing uniformly positive ‘progress’. Recommended actions include STI prevention and testing service delivery models that incorporate a locally tailored public awareness campaign, outreach to oil/gas workers, condom distribution, expanded clinic hours and drop-in appointments, specialized training for health care providers, and intersectoral partnerships between public health, non-profit organizations, and industry. An ongoing knowledge translation internship has been undertaken to implement some of these recommendations.

Awareness of the spread of invasive plant species has grown, but quantitative measures of their impacts are lacking. This study analyses the impact of Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) on breeding bird diversity finding a significant difference in bird diversity between “natural” and R. armeniacus-dominated understoreys. More bird species were noted in habitats with greater structural and compositional diversity. Simpson’s richness/evenness index was significantly different between habitat types for Stanley Park and Maplewood Flats (P<0.05) but not Jericho Park (P>0.05), likely due to lower overall bird diversity at Jericho Park and lack of overstorey trees at R. armeniacus thickets. When R. armeniacus is the dominant understorey shrub in a forested setting it has the greatest negative impact on breeding bird diversity.

Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems are now a proven area in current and future telecommunications research. MIMO wireless channels, in which both the transmitter and receiver have multiple antennas, have been shown to provide high bandwidth efficiency. In this thesis, we cover MIMO communications technology with a focus on cellular systems and the MIMO broadcast channel (MIMO-BC). Our development of techniques and analysis for the MIMO-BC starts with a study of single user MIMO systems. One such single user technique is that of antenna selection. In this thesis, we discuss various flavours of antenna selection, with the focus on powerful, yet straightforward, norm-based algorithms. These algorithms are analyzed and the results of this analysis produce a powerful and flexible power scaling factor. This power scaling factor can be used to model the gains of norm-based antenna selection via a single signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)-based parameter. This provides a powerful tool for engineers interested in quickly seeing the effects of antenna selection on their systems. A novel low complexity power allocation scheme follows on from the selection algorithms. Named “Poor Man’s Waterfilling” (PMWF), this scheme can provide significant gains in low SNR systems with very little extra complexity compared to selection alone. We then compare a variety of algorithms for the MIMO-BC, ranging from selection to beamforming, to the optimal, yet complex, iterative waterfilling (ITWF) solution. In this thesis we show that certain algorithms perform better in different scenarios, based on whether there is shadow fading or not. A power scaling factor analysis is also performed on these systems. In the cases where the user’s link gains are widely varying, such as when shadowing and distance effects are present, user fairness is impaired when optimal and near optimal throughput occurs. This leads to a key problem in the MIMO-BC, the balance between user fairness and throughput performance. In an attempt to find a suitable balance between these two factors, we modify the ITWF algorithm by both introducing extra constraints and also by using a novel utility function approach. Both these methods prove to increase user fairness with only minor loss in throughput over the optimal systems. The introduction of MIMO systems to the cellular domain has been hampered by the effects of interference between the cells. In this thesis we move MIMO to the cellular domain, addressing the interference using two different methods. We first use power control, where the transmit power of the base station is controlled to optimize the overall system throughput. This leads to promising results using low complexity methods. Our second method is a novel method of collaboration between base stations. This collaboration transforms neighbouring cell sectors into macro-cells and this results in substantial increases in performance.

South Africa has the largest economy in Africa, with significant mining and metallurgical activities. A large fraction of the mineral assets is concentrated in the Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC), with the western limb being the most exploited. Although the western BIC is considered to be an air pollution hotspot, inadequate air quality data currently exists for this area. To partially address this knowledge gap, a comprehensive air quality monitoring station was operated for more than two years at Marikana in the western BIC. Basic meteorological parameters, precipitation, Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD), trace gas concentrations (SO2, NO, NOx, O3, and CO), physical aerosol parameters (particle number and air ion size distributions, as well as aerosol light absorption) and total PM10 mass concentration were measured. Compared with South African and European ambient air quality standards, SO2, NO2 and CO concentrations were generally below the air quality standards, with average concentrations for the sampling period of 3.8ppb (9.9μg/m³), 8.5ppb (15.9μg/m³) and 230ppb (270μg/m³), respectively. The major source of SO2 was identified as high-stack industry emissions, while household combustion was identified as the predominant source of NO2 and CO. In contrast, O3 exceeded the eight-hour moving average standard (61ppb / 120μg/m³) 322 times per year. The main contributing factor was identified to be the influx of regional air masses, with high O3 precursor concentrations. PM10 exceeded the current South African 24-hour standard (120μg/m³) on average 6.6 times per year, the future 2015 standard (75μg/m³) 42.3 times per year and the European standard (50μg/m³) 120.2 times per year. The PM10 average concentration for the sampling period was 44μg/m³, which exceeded the current European and future (2015) South African annual average standard (40μg/m³), emphasising the PM pollution problem in the western BIC. The main source of PM10 was identified as household combustion. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Chemistry))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

The sociocultural economic, and political participation of girls has become a prevalent focus of policy. research, and practice. Despite their increasing visibility in the demographic composition of Canadian society. however, racialized minority girls remain largely invisible in these debates. Monolithic discourses of girl power. 'at risk' girls. youth participation and feminist activism do not account for the complex and uneven ways in which minority girls engage as knowledge producers, advocates, and community participants within cultural contexts that foster the depoliticization and social exclusion of young women of colour. Minority girls face intersecting barriers to civic participation and social inclusion `on their own terms' related to race. gender. age, citizenship. language, class and religion, among other factors. As rapid global change reconfigures girls' local realities and thus their practices of engagement, our traditional models and discourses of participation must be expanded. To problematize the relations of power under which minority girls constitute their practices of engagement and community building. I constructed a transdisciplinary conceptual framework grounded in postcolonial and transnational feminist theories. The research examined minority girls' practices of 'transformative engagement' (TE) in a collaborative, community-based, feminist Participatory Action Research project entitled "It's About Us." The study was based in Victoria. British Columbia. a predominantly Euro-Western Canadian city. "It's About Us" responded to minority girls' requests for a minority- and girl-centered epistemic space from which to explore their experiences of gendered racialization. Expressive methods including popular theatre. photography. and art served as vehicles for their engagement. The iterative feminist research design yielded data garnered from focus groups. theatre sessions. and scripts. participant-observation, journaling and photo-ethnography. This design provided the enabling conditions to deepen and sustain the girls' practices of oppositional agency and thus the emergence of transformative engagement. I developed an Interpretive Spiral Model (ISM) to extricate the difficulties of translating a feminist conceptual framework into a sustainable girl-centered project. My findings characterize transformative engagement as a multisited. precarious, generative form of praxis, rather than a formulaic process with guaranteed outcomes. I propose that the facilitation of transformative engagement entails four intersecting strategies: border crossing into exclusionary spaces. resources. and lines of power; developing safe, strategic communities of belonging: producing disruptive. critical knowledge; and engaging in public and social action. Overall. the girls' strategies of transformative engagement reveal a spectrum of subversive, deeply contextualized, multifaceted feminisms congruent with their own needs and experiences. The transformative engagement process resulted in multiple successful outcomes including theatre and conference presentations, media and website productions, and, most notably, contribution to the creation of a network of over 100 racialized girls and women called Anti-dote. The research findings illustrate how girl-centered. feminist action research can provide avenues to support minority girls' unique practices of resistance and social change. and feature their voices more prominently in community, policy, research, and practice.

The participatory economics project (parecon) is Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel's vision for radically democratic workplaces and communities. This thesis examines the daily practices and ideology of the Vancouver Parecon Collective (VPC), one organization working to promote parecon as a viable socialist alternative. Arising from criticism of both the contradictions of the capitalist marketplace and the disparate power relationships within "communist" command economies, parecon is a powerful alternative to capitalist triumphalism. This thesis examines the efficacy of parecon as a prefigurative socialist vision and argues that parecon groups typified by the VPC need to combine Gramscian counter-hegemony and Richard Day's non-hegemonic approach to move from idealism and small-scale alternatives to large-scale and deeply transformative political economic change.

In 2006, the BC Public Service published the first of a series of corporate human resource plans entitled “Being the Best”. One of the key goals of these plans is to improve employee engagement at the BC Public Service. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used to uncover the ideas and assumptions that underlie the employee engagement construct at the BC Public Service as well as better understand the influence these beliefs have on power relationships within the organization. Because there is a paucity of critical literature specifically focused on employee engagement discourse, the critical discourse analysis considers the broader discourse of human resource management. The analysis reveals that values and assumptions associated with the discourse of New Public Management (NPM) are woven into and across the texts. Three themes emerge from the analysis: transformational change is necessary and there is only one ‘right’ way to solve the crisis; the public servant identity is reshaped around the entrepreneurial spirit; and the organizational culture is redefined to align with NPM values. The effect of this discourse is to maintain and intensify managerial control over front line employees. / Graduate

This research examined the potential for protected areas with camas (including tall camas, Camassia leichtlinii (Baker) Wats., and common camas, C. quamash (Pursh) Greene; Liliaceae (Agavaceae)) habitat to support the renewal of Central Coast Salish camas traditions while at the same time maintaining and even expanding their ecological restoration and conservation goals. For many generations Central Coast Salish Peoples of northwestern North America have cultivated camas plants and harvested, processed, and consumed their edible bulbs in large quantities. Today, after camas use has almost completely disappeared from their lives, some Indigenous peoples are working to restore camas habitats and cultivation practices on southern Vancouver Island and neighbouring areas. Tall camas and common camas can still be found growing in many Garry oak ecosystems, which, due to the decreased range and the large proportion of rare species found within them, are frequently the focus of ecological restoration and conservation efforts. I interviewed people from the resource management and First Nations communities to gain an understanding of the current interests, opportunities, challenges, and potential approaches for incorporating traditionally based camas harvesting and management into protected areas today. Protected areas were identified as important areas for teaching traditional plant cultivation techniques to younger generations, and as bulb and seed banks for ethnoecological restoration projects. Overall, managers of protected areas and First Nations participants were receptive to collaborating on management of camas populations. Anticipated or existing challenges or concerns included ecological uncertainties of harvesting disturbance, ensuring safety, finding funding, and gaining trust. I conducted one season of experimental camas harvesting in a Garry oak savannah near Duncan, BC within an ecological preserve and monitored the effects of this harvesting on the extant camas populations, on surrounding plant communities, and on soil porosity. Harvesting of, primarily tall, camas bulbs, at both low and medium intensity, did not affect the weight or abundance of camas bulbs or the quantity, stem height or flowering/fruiting potential of the camas populations in the following year. Harvesting significantly reduced the abundance of Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) and common snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus, but significantly increased the abundance of Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) common cleavers (Galium aparine), hairy cat’s ear (Hypochaeris radicata), and nipplewort (Lapsana communis). Harvesting significantly reduced the level of soil compaction. Using the insights gained from the interviews and experimental harvesting I have proposed an “Ethnoecological Restoration Support Model”. This model explains how protected areas can support cultural restoration both within and outside of protected areas while maintaining and even expanding upon current conservation and restoration goals. / Graduate / 0329 / 0740 / 0471 / kproctor@uvic.ca

The legal doctrine, ‘Duty to Consult’, was set through a number of landmark court cases between 1997 and 2004. It is this duty that has helped First Nations receive official stakeholder status in the negotiation of land and resource use issues in British Columbia (BC), Canada. Later, policy initiatives, a best practices handbook, and procedure development shaped through the actual practice of consultation, contributed to the formation of an ‘in practice’ reality of this duty. When making an application to undertake a resource extraction or utilization project, industry proponents must go through BC’s Environmental Assessment (EA) process. This process is one example of where the ‘Duty to Consult’ has been applied in the form of a required consultation with First Nations affected by a proposed project. Despite the formation of law and policy meant to guide this area of practice and produce successful consultation activities, it is left unclear from law and policy alone what actual strategies are used by industry proponents to meet the requirements of consultation during an EA. However, as successful consultation is the goal, understanding the strategies alone is insufficient for creating a clear picture of the important considerations of this process. For this reason, the research sought to understand what overarching approach, aside from legal parameters and policy frameworks, guide the practice of consultation with First Nations in private sector resource industry projects. Identifying and examining the difficulties of consultation from the perspective of industry helped explain what the overall approach must be when undertaking this type of consultation and why this approach is of such importance. In the last few years EA has gained greater attention in BC. Due to this, reviewing the legal context and documents that officially shape the practice of consultation within the EA process is timely, relevant and provides a basis for further research. The research involved interviews with industry proponents and staff at the Environmental Assessment Office (EAO). These served to develop an understanding of the individual experience of those working in the field. In developing a fuller picture of the subtleties of the consultation process, the interviews are supplemented with an analysis of the social and political context that influences consultation. The analysis revealed that more effective consultations prioritize relationship-building as their primary approach and are responsive to the varying local conditions, as each community engaged with is unique. The findings present challenges perceived on the industry side that may help provide better understanding of the influences on the EA process and approach used by industry proponents. Although there are subtle differences between the issues identified by both the EAO and the industry proponents interviewed, overall the similarities were significant. All of those interviewed identified relationship-building between all stakeholders as a key approach to the process and to the long-term success of the projects being proposed. Given the historical context of the relationship between all stakeholders, the conclusion of the research is that, although building trusting relationships will be difficult given the history of relations, it is also the starting point for building greater understanding and repairing trust within this particular sector. / Graduate / 0617 / 0615 / mtamina@uvic.ca

The beginning of industrialized fish processing plants reveals themes of labor exploitation, racial and gender segregation, and antagonistic legislation that have continued well into the present. Today in the Pacific North West, the majority of workers are Latino and many among them are undocumented or DACAmented. Many aspects of the work conditions in salmon canneries back in the late 1800’s to the mid 1900’s and the work conditions in present day fish processing plants have not changed. Many jobs in a fish processing plant remain gendered, and when there is more than one race working in a single plant racial tensions as well as differences in the owners expectations of labor output by race may arise. The study interviews undocumented workers and documents their experience working in fish processing plants as well as provides historical context.