This research study develops a framework of indicators to evaluate the ‘institutional capacity’ of a municipality to implement the soft path approach. The soft path approach is a new strategy for water conservation that complements existing supply and demand water management regimes. The soft path approach aims to achieve sustainability by changing how individuals think about water and how water is used. The framework of indicators consists of qualitative descriptions of elements that should be present in a municipality to successfully implement the soft path approach. These indicators fit into eight themes: human resources, information resources, financial resources, policy and legal environment, political environment, community awareness and involvement, technological solutions, and practical considerations. These indicators are also applied to evaluate the institutional capacity of a case study (southern York Region, Ontario, Canada) for its potential to implement the soft path approach. The case study is compatible and equipped to implement the soft path approach, but this can only be accomplished if coordinated with other levels of government and external organizations.

Flavonoids are of great interest for their antioxidant and health-promoting activities. Ascorbate (vitamin C) has antioxidant activities but also sometimes displays pro-oxidant activities <i>in vitro</i> and reportedly <i>in vivo</i>. This research investigated to what extent flavonoids moderate oxidative stress from vitamin C <i>in vivo</i>.<p>Dietary experiments were conducted in two phases using adult male Wistar rats. First, all animals were maintained for two weeks on a control flavonoid-free diet with the dietary requirement (27 IU) of vitamin E/kg diet. In the subsequent four weeks, the animals were treated in four groups (8 rats/group), being fed the following diets: flavonoid-free control (C), ascorbate-supplemented (7.55 mmol/kg diet) (A), flavonoid-supplemented (2.67 mmol/kg diet) (F) and flavonoids (2.67 mmol/kg diet) plus ascorbate (7.55 mmol/kg diet)-supplemented (T). Measurements were done on in vivo biomarkers of oxidative stress, tissue antioxidants and on tissue in vitro susceptibility to oxidative stress.<p>In the combined feeding of ascorbate plus flavonoids, endogenous thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) increased in liver by 114%. No effects of dietary ascorbate or flavonoids were seen on endogenous TBARS in brain or heart, or on plasma thiols or erythrocyte fragility.<p><i>In vitro</i>, the susceptibility to TBARS formation of liver homogenate (incubated for 60 min at 37ºC in air) showed a significant 60% increase in ascorbate-fed animals compared to control, but no increase in animals fed ascorbate plus flavonoids, suggesting that the additional feeding of flavonoids helped to prevent the increase produced by ascorbate-feeding. Incubation of liver mitochondria with 300 µM ascorbate in vitro produced a large (2-7 fold) increase in TBARS, but there was no difference among mitochondria from the different feeding groups.<p>The ability of flavonoid-feeding in protecting against oxidative stress from ascorbate in vivo could not be demonstrated in this study, even showing pro-oxidant effects of flavonoids in combination with ascorbate in liver. However, in vitro tests in liver suggest a protective effect of flavonoid-feeding against susceptibility to oxidative stress from ascorbate. Further investigations are needed in order to resolve the differences observed in vitro and in vivo and to determine the endogenous effects of specific flavonoids under ascorbate-induced oxidative stress.

Recent waterborne disease outbreaks in Canada have brought national awareness to drinking water safety. In particular, the long history of poor water quality plaguing First Nations communities has received substantial public attention. Despite several initiatives from the federal government and considerable financial support, the quality of drinking water on reserves has shown little improvement and continues to pose health risks. As a result, there is a growing interest in the ability of First Nations communities to effectively manage their drinking water resources. The purpose of this study was to assess the capacity of Montreal Lake, SK to provide its residents with safe drinking water, both now and into the future. This research employed a mixed methods approach in the examination of the communitys water system and management practices. Data sources included individual interviews, a public workshop, documents and inspection reports, and water quality data. Water system capacity was considered in terms of financial, human resources, institutional, social/political, and technical dimensions. An analytical framework was developed through a literature review where each dimension of capacity was rated based on a series of indicators. It was determined that there are no serious deficiencies in the management of Montreal Lakes drinking water. However, a number of flaws in each aspect drinking water management were detected. These include weak linkages between the agencies responsible for drinking water provision, and a low level of drinking water safety for community residents served by the truck haul distribution system. This research confirms the multi-dimensional aspects of water system capacity, reveals the necessity for the different levels of authority to work together, and provides an analytical framework which may be applicable to future studies examining First Nations and small-scale drinking water systems.

In the past decade a rapid increase has been seen in the number of organizations using sport as a development tool in majority world communities. Specifically, Sport for Development programs have been promoted as a means to promote peace, a forum for social mobilization efforts and health initiatives, and a tool for sustainable community development (SDP IWG, 2008; UNIATF, 2003). Often, a fundamental goal of such programs is community capacity building. However, despite this increase in attention, data regarding benefits of these programs remains anecdotal, without a strong body of reliable evidence on the impact of Sport for Development programs on community capacity building. Informed by this context, the purpose of this study was to understand the effectiveness of a Sport for Development program in community capacity building in a refugee camp in Tanzania.<p> The research was accomplished using a qualitative case study approach with 12 key stakeholders involved in the program. The principal method of data collection was a participatory workshop methodology using Laveracks (1999) nine domains to assess community capacity. This qualitative workshop methodology also employed a quantitative tool vis-à-vis Laveracks nine domains which acted as a participatory guide to evaluate the level of community capacity in the program. An initial workshop held with key stakeholders assessed current status, which was followed by the development and implementation of strategic plans for action by stakeholders based on the workshop assessment. A second workshop was held one year later to re-assess community capacity. Additional methods of data collection included individual interviews, observations, and field notes. Member checking, a prolonged time in the field, and triangulation were the primary procedures for verifying the accuracy of the findings.<p> The results showed that community capacity was increased in eight of the nine domains. Specifically, these eight were community participation, local leadership, organizational structures, problem assessment capacities, resource mobilization, ability to ask why, role of outside agents, and program management. The findings from this study demonstrate that a Sport for Development program can be effective in increasing community capacity; this was attributed to the specific participatory methodology used to assess community capacity, structural changes in the program, and a change in approach to programming by project coordinators.

This thesis proposes a potential solution for future ubiquitous broadband wireless access networks, called a cellular wireless mesh network (CMESH), and investigates a number of its performance issues. A CMESH is organized in multi-radio, multi-channel, multi-rate and multi-hop radio cells. It can operate on abundant high radio frequencies, such as 5-50 GHz, and thus may satisfy the bandwidth requirements of future ubiquitous wireless applications.<p> Each CMESH cell has a single Internet-connected gateway and serves up to hundreds of mesh nodes within its coverage area. This thesis studies performance issues in a CMESH, focusing on cell capacity, expressed in terms of the max-min throughput. In addition to introducing the concept of a CMESH, this thesis makes the following contributions.<p> The first contribution is a new method for analyzing theoretical cell capacity. This new method is based on a new concept called Channel Transport Capacity (CTC), and derives new analytic expressions for capacity bounds for carrier-sense-based CMESH cells.<p> The second contribution is a new algorithm called the Maximum Channel Collision Time (MCCT) algorithm and an expression for the nominal capacity of CMESH cells. This thesis proves that the nominal cell capacity is achievable and is the exact cell capacity for small cells within the abstract models.<p> Finally, based on the MCCT algorithm, this thesis proposes a series of greedy algorithms for channel assignment and routing in CMESH cells. Simulation results show that these greedy algorithms can significantly improve the capacity of CMESH cells, compared with algorithms proposed by other researchers.

Future wireless networks will be required to transmit real-time multimedia data reliably with high speed and low latency. This demands new approaches to the design and analysis of wireless networks. In this context, multiple antenna architectures are a promising solution which provide wireless systems with a high degree of functionality, adaptability, capacity, and robustness. However, efficient use of these systems is possible only by solving a number of critical problems. In this dissertation, we focus on coding and information theoretic aspects of multiple antenna systems. Knowledge in these areas provides us with guidelines into analysis and design of systems, reveals inherent limitations, pinpoints problems and opportunities for improvement, and also allows for rigorous argument and justification of observations. We present novel results on multiple antenna communication systems with both theoretical and practical impacts. In the area of coding theory, performance limits and error bounds for space-time codes will be discussed, along with guidelines for systematic design of space-time codes in the presence of the channel correlation profile. In the area of information theory, a unified approach to the capacity analysis of multiple antenna channels will be discussed. We also present a novel partial ordering relation on fading channels that is helpful in information theoretic analysis of compound and non-stationary channels. The results of the dissertation can be generalized to multiple-user channels. This could lead to a solid understanding of fundamental limits of wireless systems and opportunities for opening new trends and paradigms for future generations of wireless networks.

Three aromatic poly(arylene ether)s P2¡BP3¡BP4 were synthesized from bis(fluoride)4,4¡¨¡¨-Difluoro-3,3¡¨¡¨-bsi-trifluoromethyl-n¡¨-bisphenyl-[1,1¡¦;4¡¦,1¡¨;4¡¨,1¡¨¡¦;4¡¨¡¦,1¡¨¡¨]-quinquephenyl(n¡¨:2¡¨,3¡¨[G2];2¡¨,3¡¨,5¡¨[G3];2¡¨,3¡¨,5¡¨,6¡¨[G4]) with 4,4'-(9-Fluorenylidene)diphenol. The molecular weight of the polymer (Mw: 105-1.6¡Ñ105, PDI:1.5-2.2) was measured by gel permeation chromatography and the structure was confirmed by NMR spectra. Thermal stability was measured using Thermogravimetry and Thermomechanical Analysis. The polymer had a Td at 520¢J ~550¢J, and soft point at 310¢J. Young's modulus of polymer was (1.25-2.5Gpa). This polymer has high strength, modulus of elasticity, and thermal stability. The polymer consists of polyaromatic groups with bisfluoride monomer, (5, 6, 7 aromatic). We hypothesized that sulfonation of the polymer will exhibit high conductivity and great mechanical properties. Ion exchange capacities (IECs) were evaluated by acid¡Vbase titration. We sulfonated the polymer in order to apply to the proton exchange membrane fuel cell. The results showed after sulfonation of P4, IEC is 3.3(meq/g), and sulfonation of P2 showed that its proton conductivity is 75% more than Nafion117 at 80¢J with 0.28(S/cm). Keywords: proton exchange membrane, proton conductivity, Nafion, sulfonated, ion exchange capacity

This study presents a conceptual model, based on absorptive capacity and affordance theory, for investigating the e-Top facilitation and knowledge representation required by the e-Top platform and the impact of such functions in enhancing knowledge assimilation and then knowledge exploitation. A scale that measures above constructs is developed and validated. Survey data from e-Top platform members is tested. The partial least squares (PLS) method is empirically used to test the conceptual model and hypotheses using the collected survey data. The empirical results support the proposed model. The analysis provides evidence that the e-Top facilitation and knowledge representation positively effect on knowledge assimilation; the knowledge assimilation has a positive effect on knowledge exploitation. This study provides initial insights into factors that are likely to be significant antecedents of knowledge exploitation for the e-Top platform. Besides, the consultant support positively amplified the effect of e-Top facilitation on knowledge assimilation. The findings are particularly valuable to the e-Top platform development team and administrators. The e-Top platform development team can develop the e-Top platform in accordance with these findings to ensure better knowledge assimilation and exploitation through the exploitation of e-Top platform. Thereby, with this platform the effectiveness of industry-university collaboration will be enhanced.

In this research, we consider production/inventory management decisions of a rmthat sells its product in two market segments during a nite planning horizon. In thebeginning of each period, the rm makes a decision on how much to produce basedon the production capacity and the current on-hand inventory available. After theproduction is made at the beginning of the period, the rm rst satises the stochasticdemand from customers in its primary market. Any primary market demand thatcannot be satised is lost. After satisfying the demand from the primary market, ifthere is still inventory on hand, all or part of the remaining products can be sold ina secondary market with ample demand at a lower price. Hence, the second decisionthat the rm makes in each period is how much to sell in the secondary market, orequivalently, how much inventory to carry to the next period.The objective is to maximize the expected net revenue during a nite planninghorizon by determining the optimal production quantity in each period, and theoptimal inventory amount to carry to the next period after the sales in primary andsecondary markets. We term the optimal inventory amount to be carried to the nextperiod as \economic retention quantity". We model this problem as a nite horizonstochastic dynamic program. Our focus is to characterize the structure of the optimalpolicy and to analyze the system under dierent parameter settings. Conditioning on given parameter set, we establish lower and upper bounds on the optimal policyparameters. Furthermore, we provide computational tools to determine the optimalpolicy parameters. Results of the numerical analysis are used to provide furtherinsights into the problem from a managerial perspective.

This dissertation deals with the design of bandwidth-efficient coding schemes with Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) for reliable wireless communications. Code design for wireless channels roughly falls into three categories: (1) when channel state information (CSI) is known only to the receiver (2) more practical case of partial CSI at the receiver when the channel has to be estimated (3) when CSI is known to the receiver as well as the transmitter. We consider coding schemes for all the above categories. For the first scenario, we describe a bandwidth efficient scheme which uses highorder constellations such as QAM over both AWGN as well as fading channels. We propose a simple design with LDPC codes which combines the good properties of Multi-level Coding (MLC) and bit-interleaved coded-modulation (BICM) schemes. Through simulations, we show that the proposed scheme performs better than MLC for short-medium lengths on AWGN and block-fading channels. For the first case, we also characterize the rate-diversity tradeoff of MIMO-OFDM and SISO-OFDM systems. We design optimal coding schemes which achieve this tradeoff when transmission is from a constrained constellation. Through simulations, we show that with a sub-optimal iterative decoder, the performance of this coding scheme is very close to the optimal limit for MIMO (flat quasi-static fading), MIMO-OFDM and SISO OFDM systems. For the second case, we design non-systematic Irregular Repeat Accumulate (IRA) codes, which are a special class of LDPC codes, for Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) fading channels when CSI is estimated at the receiver. We use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) to convert the ISI fading channel into parallel flat fading subchannels. We use a simple receiver structure that performs iterative channel estimation and decoding and use non-systematic IRA codes that are optimized for this receiver. This combination is shown to perform very close to a receiver with perfect CSI and is also shown to be robust to change in the number of channel taps and Doppler. For the third case, we look at bandwidth efficient schemes for fading channels that perform close to capacity when the channel state information is known at the transmitter as well as the receiver. Schemes that achieve capacity with a Gaussian codebook for the above system are already known but not for constrained constellations. We derive the near-optimum scheme to achieve capacity with constrained constellations and then propose coding schemes which perform close to capacity. Through linear transformations, a MIMO system can be converted into non-interfering parallel subchannels and we further extend the proposed coding schemes to the MIMO case too.