Water pollution is one of society’s most crucial issues which has a negative impact on water quality. The cleaning of blasted rock materials is a process which produces wastewater containing nitrogen and other pollutants such as heavy metals due to explosives residue from blasting. The release of this wastewater to a recipient could have a negative impact on water quality. In order to counteract contamination of recipients, wetlands can be used. However, there is little knowledge and research of their efficiency in removing such contaminants from wastewater of blasting operations. Therefore, the aim of this report is to study plant’s remediation of pollutants, which is one of the processes involved in wetland treatment systems. This is examined through studying the effectiveness of different wetland-plant combinations’ ability to remove nitrogen and heavy metals in the wastewater. Another aim is to examine the silicon concentrations in the wastewater since silicon can be found from blasted rocks. This is of interest since elevated levels of silicon can act as a beneficial nutrient for crops and could then increase the value of the wastewater. The removal of the aforementioned substances has been studied after one, four and 24 hours through water analysis. Reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea), slender tufted sedge (Carex acuta) and yellow iris (Iris pseudacorus) were paired together in three different combinations for the study; A, B and C. The result from the water analysis was that the wastewater contained in average 64 mg N L-1, which is considered to be extremely high. For the nitrogen remediation the plant combinations containing I. pseudacorus removed the most nitrogen, 12 %, after 24 hours. Although, the nitrogen reduction was significantly lower compared to other studies. The heavy metal content was more than ten times lower in comparison to the upper limit values and was not reduced significantly by different systems. Regarding the silicon content, it was the same as found naturally in soil and water. The plants did not absorb any silicon, which indicates that the silicon was in a particular chemical form which is hard for plants to absorb. Sedimentation is mentioned as a major remediation process in wetlands, however in this study when plants were not present the result illustrated that the sedimentation probably did not function optimally. This could then demonstrate the importance of plants for other remediation processes. The conclusion of this study is that plants’ reduction of nitrogen in wastewater constitutes of a small part and could affect the function of sedimentation. In addition, according to this study yellow iris could be added to plant combinations to increase the treatment potential of wastewater produced from the cleaning process of blasted rock material, though further studies are recommended.

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John Baldessari’s Blasted Allegories (1977-1978) represent a concerted reconsideration of the most active and critical pursuits of the 1960s and ‘70s, including structuralism, post-structuralism, systems-based art, constraint-based approaches to composition, chance, and allegory. Thirty-five of the sixty-some Blasted Allegories are designated here as “later” works in the series because they share formal and structural characteristics; they present arrangements of colored photographs on neutral matte board. Although the later Blasted Allegories initially appear as colorful sentences, the close readings undertaken in this dissertation reveal that these pieces have been generated by the imposition of individual sets of constraints on a combinatorial system. In addition, many of these works appropriate structural models from cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, narratologist A. J. Greimas, and grammarian Noam Chomsky; even though they subsume the rules implied by these structural models, they undergo a post-structural critique wherein fixed relationships are destabilized by word play, homophones, rhyme, and the imposition of such additional operations as algorithms. This dissertation demonstrates how Baldessari solicits art as an experience of cognitive construction, pleasure, and protracted play with the possibilities of meaning. His crypto-narratives take readers along the cognitive spiral theorized by psychologist Jean Piaget that begin with sensory perceptions, expand into operational understandings of these works as products of a combinatory system, and can be built into logical and mathematical apprehensions of the resultant texts. Like many of the embedded models, Piaget’s spiral is counterbalanced in this series by the conflation of vying cultural models into a cacophony of signification. Baldessari’s texts play with readers’ proclivities to search for meaning. The artist solicits protracted interactions from viewer/readers, who are able to discern multiple, simultaneous readings and thus relinquish an ensconced approach toward art as a synthesis of embedded cultural models. Baldessari’s series engages conceptions of allegory as a procedure, a condition of the text, and a hedge against reductive, overarching interpretations. Working in a Duchampian vein, Baldessari posits the components of new syntaxes for art that return readers to these pieces, where variable interactions between readers and these heteroglossic texts ressemble open systems that can unsettle artist-imposed significations.

Sarah Kane has often been categorized as an “In-Yer-Face” playwright, part of a group of contemporary British playwrights interested in making audiences feel the outcome of violence. However, Kane’s plays have also arguably challenged many existing theatrical forms, including the late twentieth century resurgence of “Angry Young Men” plays. While critics have been quick to identify madness as a main theme of her work, few have connected each play’s complex construction of madness with a struggle to complicate existing theatrical form. Through an intersectionally feminist reading of three of her plays—Blasted, Crave, and 4.48 Psychosis—this thesis examines the connection between the rejection of normative disability tropes (or madness, more specifically) and the challenging construction of theatrical form that takes place within each of these Kane plays.

Titanium has been widely used for dental implants, and in particular, roughened titanium surfaces have provided a means for increasing bone apposition and strengthening the implant-to-bone interface. Finding a way to further increase osseointegration is important because there is a significant clinical benefit to patients if a stable anchor can be established instead of anchoring orthodontic hardware to the molars. In this study, the effect of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2) on the ability of temporary anchorage devices (TADs) to osseointegrate was investigated. The temporary anchorage devices (TADs) used in this study were manufactured from commercially pure titanium and divided into 2 types of treatments: (1) sandblasted and acid-etched (i.e. the control) and (2) sandblasted and acid-etched treated with Medtronic INFUSE® Bone Graft (recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 placed on an absorbable collagen sponge). The implants were placed on the cranial bones of 10 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. The rats were euthanized by carbon dioxide asphyxiation 6 weeks following surgery for histological examination and biomechanical testing. The results from visual inspection and biomechanical testing showed that the sandblasted and acid-etched TADs treated with rhBMP-2 promoted better osseointegration than TADs that were only sandblasted and acid-etched. Specifically, surface modified TADs treated with rhBMP-2 on bottom showed an increased surface coverage by bone and an increase in the adhesion strength at the TAD-to-bone interface.

<p>In this thesis, I investigate Canadian poetry that is explicitly about the political (politicians, political parties, or political policies) written in English. I begin by defining political poetry and its aims in Canada and then progress through an examination of three collections of poetry and one poem: <em>The Blasted Pine</em>; <em>Howl Too, Eh?</em>; and <em>Rogue Stimulus</em>. This allows for a comprehensive look at how political poetry has evolved in Canada from a pointed and critical genre that aims to mock and argue to a more subtle, playful genre that utilizes parody and wit. It also demonstrates the evolution and complication of voice in political poetry, given that each poem contains the voice of the poet, the speaker, the public, and the political.</p> <p>I argue that political poetry in Canada is not poetry as dissent, protest, or witness, but rather poetry as inquiry/commission (in the political sense). This definition relies on the fact that Canadian political poetry seeks to ascribe accountability for political actions and decisions and utilizes the poet as spokesperson, speaking for the public to the political (and the public in turn). Canadian political poetry hence arises out of a demand from the public, much like political inquiries do, and through the satirical use of politically correct language and explicit political references calls for action from the political sphere and the public. I further argue that poetry as inquiry also comments on the public itself (including the author/speaker as a member of that public) and that political poetry is transideological.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

This dissertation examines Samuel Beckett's powerful legacy and influence on contemporary theater (on plays written and produced since 1980), and it defines this influence in both text and performance as gestures of emptiness and impotence. The plays selected for analysis here have been categorized at times as belonging to a tradition and legacy of the so-called "Theater of the Absurd," but, finding this category to be at once too restrictive and too loose, their relationship to the absurd is defined by their explicit use of and inspiration taken from Beckett's theater. Beckett's intentional and innovative use of emptiness and impotence, both spatially and textually, is decisively paradoxical: while emphasizing blank spaces and powerlessness, his plays find meaning in emptiness and unexpected control in what he called the "exploitation of impotence." In each of the plays analyzed in this dissertation, (Dans la solitude des champs de coton, Koltès; La secreta obscenidad de cada día, de la Parra; Blasted, Kane; and Laughing Wild, Durang), the explicit use of both emptiness and powerlessness are examined, and at the same time, I define what it is about each of these gestures that renders them particularly Beckettian as they relate to these works. In all of the plays examined here, gestures of emptiness and impotence become their opposites: significance and power. Four of Samuel Beckett's plays (Fragment de théâtre I, En attendant Godot, Fin de partie, and Happy Days) are compared and contrasted with the work of Koltès, de la Parra, Kane and Durang respectively. The parallels revealed, made both intentionally and unintentionally by their playwrights, demonstrate not only the certainty of Beckett's continued influence, but also reflect his persistent, widespread impact. What is shown, with broader implications for future study, is that Beckett's use of emptiness and impotence as theatrical, literary and artistic gestures have led to a new kind of hopefulness, and a new kind of artistic inspiration that is unique to our time. / text

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