Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in English. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-247). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99241

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2007. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-114). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--York University, 2003. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-102). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL:http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss&rft%5Fval%5Ffmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss:MQ99292

This is an essay about gated communities and their impact on society. The key questions of my essay are: why people choose to live in gated communities; how the city is impacted by gated communities and what the difference concerning the reasons and impact of gated communities in Florida and Sweden is, and what this difference might depend on. I am using postmodern urbanism as a starting point, and I look closer on Edward J. Soja’s theories about the postmodern metropolis. The research about gated communities is almost nonexistent in Sweden, so the literature I have read and used in my essay has mostly an American perspective. For a Swedish perspective I have among other things interviewed a professor in urban planning from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. My study shows that a search for security and a certain lifestyle are the main reasons for people to live or want to live in gated communities, both in Florida and in Sweden. However, there is a big difference in the subject between Florida and Sweden, mainly because there are only a few living areas in Sweden that can be considered as being gated communities. In Sweden a new lifestyle community called Victoria Park and is considered being a “Swedish gated community” has gotten a lot of critique in the media. This shows that gated communities are not really accepted in Sweden yet. In Florida gated communities are not considered extraordinary and you can see the negative impacts they have had on the city, like empty cities without the service that is now found inside gated communities. Gated communities can be seen by some as a dream living situation, and for others a nightmare. Living in a private community with gates are not yet something you can do in Sweden, but the development of living areas like Victoria Park and its popularity show that maybe it won’t take long until it’s not considered as an irregularity.

How do security communities develop in and through practice? For more than forty years, security relations between Russia and NATO member states were structured by the spectre of mutual assured destruction as symbolized by thousands of nuclear missiles targeted at each other. Less than a generation after the end of the Cold War, the possibility of military confrontation between these former enemies has considerably receded. Taking inspiration from Pierre Bourdieu, this dissertation develops a theory of practice of security communities that argues that on the ground of international politics, the social fact of peace emerges when security practitioners come to debate with diplomacy—the non-violent settlement of disputes—instead of about diplomacy. It is doxa, a relationship of immediate adherence to the order of things, that makes such a peaceful practical sense possible. In the empirical analysis, the dissertation reveals an intriguing paradox in the post-Cold War Russian-Atlantic relationship. On the one hand, over the last fifteen years Russia and NATO member states have solved each and every one of their disputes, including fierce ones over the double enlargement, by nonviolent means. Such a track record of peaceful change is testimony to security-communitybuilding processes. But on the other hand, diplomatic success was often bought at the price of a growing mistrust on the Russian side. As the Russian Great Power habitus resurfaced, hysteresis—a disconnect between players’ dispositions and their positions in the game—steadily increased to the point of inconclusive symbolic power struggles over the rules of the international security game and the roles that each player should play. A decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, Russian-Atlantic relations have left the terrain of military confrontation but have yet to settle on that of mature peace. Building on several dozen interviews with Russian and NATO security practitioners, the dissertation discovers that diplomacy has become a normal though not a self-evident practice in Russian-Atlantic dealings.

There is a strong push in public health for multi-faceted partnerships to develop practice-relevant evidence that effectively address complex risk factors like tobacco use. Consequently, new partnership structures that cross-cut different social groups are emerging to harness their distinct knowledge and generate actionable breakthroughs. Little is known about these structures, particularly informal ones that hinge on voluntary group membership like Communities of Practice (CoPs). Specifically, little is known about the factors/processes that enable people representing different social groups to translate their knowledge across group boundaries and co-create knowledge that informs action in these informal structures. Calls to develop/test theories, frameworks, and models are made to enlighten these gaps. This study responded to these calls by developing and testing a conceptual framework. The framework asserts that a shared identity, member identification / sense of belonging, social capital and psychological safety contribute to diverse people cohering into a collective, which was deemed important to enable knowledge to translate across group boundaries. The study examined how each factor influenced and inter-related to influence the use of CoP-related knowledge and its different types (with an emphasis on conceptual and instrumental uses). The study also examined what factors contributed to or detracted from these relationships in the context of the Program Training and Consultation Centre’s tobacco control specific Learning through Evidence and Action Reflection Network (LEARN) Community of Practice (CoP) project. Following a pragmatist orientation, a two-phased quant-QUAL sequential, explanatory mixed-methods embedded case study design was employed. The LEARN CoP project formed the case study and two CoPs that comprised that project formed the embedded units. Phase I of the study involved a quantitative survey that was completed by 35 of 58 eligible LEARN CoP members. The Phase II dominant qualitative study involved ~90 minute audio-recorded telephone interviews of 14 LEARN CoP members (seven per embedded unit) who comprised a subset of Phase I survey respondents (nested sampling approach). CoP documents (meeting minutes, audio-recorded meetings, Community Charters and Learning Agendas, WebEx™ discussion posts) served as supplementary data sources. Phase I quantitative analyses examined whether each factor of interest predicted knowledge use using simple and multiple linear regression, tested an analytic model that proposed shared identity led to knowledge use via the mediators member identification, social capital and psychological safety using Baron & Kenny’s (1986) mediation approach and Goodman’s Test (1960) for confirmation. As a prelude to the Phase II qualitative study, descriptive statistics, t-tests and ANOVA were conducted to discern how the LEARN CoP and more specifically each of its embedded units (CoP A and CoP B) were developing with respect to the factors of interest and what differences existed between the two communities. Phase I findings loosely informed the focus of the Phase II qualitative study and data were coded and analysed using open, axial and selective coding procedures (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Phase I and Phase II data were compared and contrasted in the discussion, with greater emphasis placed on the qualitative findings. Overall findings revealed that in the LEARN CoP case, each factor in the conceptual framework influenced how members used knowledge gained in the CoP. These factors also inter-related in ways that helped diverse members to cohere in ways that influenced knowledge use. Shared identity, member identification / sense of belonging and psychological safety were related to conceptual types of knowledge use (increased awareness, learning as a result of CoP knowledge). Social capital was the only factor that was related to both conceptual and instrumental types of CoP knowledge use (e.g., knowledge gained from the CoP was used to inform decision making or applied in some fashion in practice). However, member identification / sense of belonging emerged as an important theme that motivated members to interact and build social capital which in turn led to instrumental types of knowledge use. A superordinate identity (shaped by a common and actionable purpose) helped members to jel together despite representing different social groups by serving as an anchor point for member identification / sense of belonging. The CoP’s ‘alignment’ with the philosophies, culture and priorities of important entity’s that shaped the CoP’s work (e.g., government and the organizations that members represented) also influenced the use of CoP knowledge. Other factors including relevant knowledge, leadership (including member roles), and a variety of mechanisms that enabled interaction (i.e., in-person meetings, WebEx, teleconferences, structured time for practice sharing, working groups) contributed to or detracted from the relationships found in the study. Solving complex problems like tobacco-related chronic diseases necessitates building multi-faceted partnership structures that connect different configurations of an existing or desired system and their respective knowledge. This is not an easy task because it requires bringing together people representing potentially different social identities that possess their own ways of thinking and doing, which can limit knowledge use. This study sought to understand how factors that help diverse people to cohere into a collective enhance knowledge use. The study highlights the need to understand identity-based issues at play when people from different social groups are brought together in partnership structures like the formally instituted, voluntary CoP examined. Cultivating a shared identity and sense of belonging can bridge silos and motivate people to engage in behaviours that build rich pools of social capital. These factors together can enhance the co-creation and use of evidence and collective action that can save lives.

The thesis addresses three main problems in the area of user modeling and adaptation in the context of online communities:<p> 1) Dealing with unique and changing user modeling needs of online communities. <p> 2) Involving users in design of the user modeling process.<p> 3) Interoperability of user models across different communities.<p> A new policy based-approach for user modeling is proposed, that allows explicit declarative representation of the user modeling and adaptation process in terms of policies, which can be viewed and edited by users. This policy-based user model framework is implemented in the MCComtella community framework, developed as part of this thesis work, which allows hosting multiple communities, creating new communities by users, and which supports users in setting explicit user modeling policies defining participation rewards, roles and movement of users across communities.

The gastrointestinal tract is colonized by an abundant and diverse community of microorganisms which has a profound impact on the health of the host. The profiling of these microbial communities with traditional culture-based methods identifies only a fraction of microbes present with limited specificity, high labour costs and limited sample throughput. To overcome these limitations, a molecular hybridization assay was developed and characterized using the target gene chaperonin 60 (cpn60). The interspecies discriminatory ability of the hybridization assay was determined by hybridizing cpn60 gene fragments from a known species to a series of cpn60 gene fragments derived from related species with distinct but similar cpn60 sequences. Species with less than 85% cpn60 sequence identity to the probe DNA were effectively distinguished using the hybridization approach. To characterize complex microbial communities, universal PCR primers were used to amplify a fragment of 549-567 nucleotides from cpn60 (the cpn60 universal target (UT)) using template DNA extracted from the ileal contents of pigs fed diets based on corn (C), barley (B), or wheat (W), or from plasmids containing the cpn60 UT selected from a clone library generated from these contents. The intensity of hybridization signals generated using labelled probes prepared from library clones designated B1 (Bacillales-related), S1 (Streptococcus-related), C1 (Clostridiales-related), and L10 (Lactobacillales-related) and targets prepared from ileal contents of C, W, or B-fed pigs correlated closely with the number of genomes of each bacterial group as determined by quantitative PCR. Universal PCR primers were also used to amplify genomic DNA extracted from jejeunal contents of pre- and post-weaning piglets. Labelled probe DNA was prepared from S1, L10, LV (Lactobacillus vaginalis-related) and EC (E.coli) library clones. The resulting signal intensities correlated with quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) data for L10 and LV, but minimal correlation was observed for the S1 and EC groups. A cpn60- based macroarray has potential as a tool for identification and semi-quantification of shifts in colonization abundance of bacteria in complex communities, providing a similar amount of data as techniques such as denaturation gradient gel electrophoresis or terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis.

How do security communities develop in and through practice? For more than forty years, security relations between Russia and NATO member states were structured by the spectre of mutual assured destruction as symbolized by thousands of nuclear missiles targeted at each other. Less than a generation after the end of the Cold War, the possibility of military confrontation between these former enemies has considerably receded. Taking inspiration from Pierre Bourdieu, this dissertation develops a theory of practice of security communities that argues that on the ground of international politics, the social fact of peace emerges when security practitioners come to debate with diplomacy—the non-violent settlement of disputes—instead of about diplomacy. It is doxa, a relationship of immediate adherence to the order of things, that makes such a peaceful practical sense possible. In the empirical analysis, the dissertation reveals an intriguing paradox in the post-Cold War Russian-Atlantic relationship. On the one hand, over the last fifteen years Russia and NATO member states have solved each and every one of their disputes, including fierce ones over the double enlargement, by nonviolent means. Such a track record of peaceful change is testimony to security-communitybuilding processes. But on the other hand, diplomatic success was often bought at the price of a growing mistrust on the Russian side. As the Russian Great Power habitus resurfaced, hysteresis—a disconnect between players’ dispositions and their positions in the game—steadily increased to the point of inconclusive symbolic power struggles over the rules of the international security game and the roles that each player should play. A decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, Russian-Atlantic relations have left the terrain of military confrontation but have yet to settle on that of mature peace. Building on several dozen interviews with Russian and NATO security practitioners, the dissertation discovers that diplomacy has become a normal though not a self-evident practice in Russian-Atlantic dealings.

The emergence of the zoonotic disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Canada resulted in a severe agricultural crisis. However, little is known about the ways in which farmers and rural communities were affected. The overall objective of this study is to characterize and better understand the impacts on and responses of farmers and rural communities as they relate to this crisis. Research was undertaken in strata throughout the diverse three Canadian prairie provinces – Alberta, Saskatchewan and Alberta – by employing surveys and focus groups. Results indicated there were numerous direct and ‘spillover’ impacts on farmers and rural communities resulting from the BSE crisis. Declines in cattle prices, herd equity and cash flow, often resulting in the need for bank loans, farm credit or off farm employment, as well as emotional and psychological stress were all experienced by farmers as a result of BSE. Importantly, many additional factors such as adverse weather and market volatility compounded the impacts related to BSE, adding to what was already a crisis situation for many farmers. These impacts were not restricted to farms but, rather, extended into the surrounding community fabric in the form of financial and social stress. Results further indicated government policies contributed to the impacts and the effectiveness of farmer responses related to BSE. A longer-term policy shift that has embraced agro-industrialization and entrenchment into the global marketplace has resulted in clear disparities between the biggest and smallest players in the beef industry and agriculture as a whole. This was illustrated in the ways in which governments responded to the BSE crisis, favouring the needs of the largest farmers and agri-businesses over those of smaller-scale, cow-calf producers. This policy shift and response has left the Canadian beef industry, family farmers and rural communities more susceptible to the emergence of similar future risks. A more inclusive approach to risk research and policymaking that meaningfully involved farmers and their rich, longer-term local knowledge might help mitigate similar risks that will inevitably confront agriculture in the future. / February 2009