Nucleation is the first step in the formation of a new phase in a thermodynamic system. The Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT) is the traditional theory used to describe this phenomenon. The object of this thesis is to investigate nucleation beyond one of the most significant limitations of the CNT: the assumption that the surface tension of a nucleating cluster of the new phase is independent of the cluster’s size and has the same value that it would have in the bulk of the new phase. In order to accomplish this, we consider a microscopic, two-dimensional Lattice Gas Automata (LGA) model of precipitate nucleation in a supersaturated system, with model input parameters Ess (solid particle-to-solid particle bonding energy), Esw (solid particle-to-water particle bonding energy), η (next-to-nearest neighbour bonding coeffiicent in solid phase), and Cin (initial solute concentration). The LGA method was chosen for its advantages of easy implementation, low memory requirements, and fast computation speed. Analytical results for the system’s concentration and the crystal radius as functions of time are derived and the former is fit to the simulation data in order to determine the system’s equilibrium concentration. A mean first-passage time (MFPT) technique is used to obtain the nucleation rate and critical nucleus size from the simulation data. The nucleation rate and supersaturation are evaluated using a modification to the CNT that incorporates a two-dimensional, radius-dependent surface tension term. The Tolman parameter, δ, which controls the radius-dependence of the surface tension, decreases (increases) as a function of the magnitude of Ess (Esw), at fixed values of η and Esw (Ess). On the other hand, δ increases as η increases while Ess and Esw are held constant. The constant surface tension term of the CNT, Σ0, increases (decreases) with increasing magnitudes of Ess (Esw) fixed values of Esw (Ess), and increases as η is increased. Together, these results indicate an increase in the radius-dependent surface tension, Σ, with respect to increasing magnitude of Ess relative to the magnitude of Esw. Σ0 increases linearly as a function of the change in energy during an attachment or detachment reaction, |ΔE|, however with a slope less than that predicted for a crystal that is uniformly packed at maximum density.

A map is an embedding of the vertices and edges of a graph into a compact 2-manifold such that the remainder of the surface has components homeomorphic to open disks. With the goal of proving the Four Colour Theorem, Tutte began the field of map enumeration in the 1960's. His methods included developing the edge deletion decomposition, developing and solving a recurrence and functional equation based on this decomposition, and developing the medial bijection between two equinumerous infinite families of maps. Beginning in the 1980's Jackson, Goulden and Visentin applied algebraic methods in enumeration of non-planar and non-orientable maps, to obtain results of interest for mathematical physics and algebraic geometry, and the Quadrangulation Conjecture and the Map-Jack Conjecture. A special case of the former is solved by Tutte's medial bijection. The latter uses Jack symmetric functions which are a topic of active research. In the 1960's Walsh and Lehman introduced a method of encoding orientable maps. We develop a similar method, based on depth first search and extended to non-orientable maps. With this, we develop a bijection that extends Tutte's medial bijection and partially solves the Quadrangulation Conjecture. Walsh extended Tutte's recurrence for planar maps to a recurrence for all orientable maps. We further extend the recurrence to include non-orientable maps, and express it as a partial differential equation satisfied by the generating series. By appropriately interpolating the differential equation and applying the depth first search method, we construct a parameter that empirically fulfils the conditions of the Map-Jack Conjecture, and we prove some of its predicted properties. Arques and Beraud recently obtained a continued fraction form of a specialisation of the generating series for maps. We apply the depth search method with an ordinary differential equation, to construct a bijection whose existence is implied by the continued fraction.

New event detection, also known as first story detection (FSD), has become very popular in recent years. The task consists of finding previously unseen events from a stream of documents. Despite the apparent simplicity, FSD is very challenging and has applications anywhere where timely access to fresh information is crucial: from journalism to stock market trading, homeland security, or emergency response. With the rise of user generated content and citizen journalism we have entered an era of big and noisy data, yet traditional approaches for solving FSD are not designed to deal with this new type of data. The amount of information that is being generated today exceeds by many orders of magnitude previously available datasets, making traditional approaches obsolete for modern event detection. In this thesis, we propose a modern approach to event detection that scales to unbounded streams of text, without sacrificing accuracy. This is a crucial property that enables us to detect events from large streams like Twitter, which none of the previous approaches were able to do. One of the major problems in detecting new events is vocabulary mismatch, also known as lexical variation. This problem is characterized by different authors using different words to describe the same event, and it is inherent to human language. We show how to mitigate this problem in FSD by using paraphrases. Our approach that uses paraphrases achieves state-of-the-art results on the FSD task, while still maintaining efficiency and being able to process unbounded streams. Another important property of user generated content is the high level of noise, and Twitter is no exception. This is another problem that traditional approaches were not designed to deal with, and here we investigate different methods of reducing the amount of noise. We show that by using information from Wikipedia, it is possible to significantly reduce the amount of spurious events detected in Twitter, while maintaining a very small latency in detection. A question is often raised as to whether Twitter is at all useful, especially if one has access to a high-quality stream such as the newswire, or if it should be considered as sort of a poor man’s newswire. In our comparison of these two streams we find that Twitter contains events not present in the newswire, and that it also breaks some events sooner, showing that it is useful for event detection, even in the presence of newswire.

Wastewater sludge is considered a valuable source of nutrients and energy. Freeze/thaw treatment is an efficient dewatering method for wastewater sludge management in First Nation communities located in cold climate conditions. Natural freeze/thaw is a simple, practical and low cost method, which can effectively dewater sludge. The objective of this research is to evaluate dewatering, nutrient recovery and organics separation of wastewater sludge originating from different wastewater treatment processes using freeze/thaw processing. The results of experiments showed the effectiveness of this method in sludge dewaterability and solubilisation of organics and nutrients. The sludge solid content increased by approximately 10-fold after treatment. It was effective in solubilisation of about 15.2%, 33.5% and 21.5% of total nitrogen, total phosphorus and total chemical oxygen demand to soluble one, respectively for the non-BNR sludge. However, anaerobic digestion of the solid cake post freeze/thaw treatment did not show enhanced methane yield compared with fresh sludge. / February 2017

Recent observations have suggested that the C III] lambda 1907/1909 emission lines could be alternative diagnostic lines for galaxies in the reionization epoch. We use the F128N narrowband filter on the Hubble Space Telescope's (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to search for C III] emission in a sample of five galaxies at z = 5.7 in the Subaru Deep Field and the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field. Using the F128N narrowband imaging, together with the broadband imaging, we do not detect C III] emission for the five galaxies with JAB ranging from 24.10 to 27.00 in our sample. For the brightest galaxy J132416.13+274411.6 in our sample (z = 5.70, J(AB) = 24.10), which has a significantly higher signal to noise, we report a C III] flux of 3.34 +/- 1.81 x 10(-18) erg s(-1)cm(-2), which places a stringent 3 sigma upper limit of 5.43 x 10(-18) erg s(-1)cm(-2) on C III] flux and 6.57 angstrom on the C III] equivalent width. Using the stacked image, we put a 3 sigma upper limit on the mean C III] flux of 2.55 x 10(-18) erg s(-1) cm(-2) and a 3 sigma upper limit on the mean C III] equivalent width of 4.20 angstrom for this sample of galaxies at z = 5.70. Combined with strong C III] detection reported among high-z galaxies in the literature, our observations suggest that the equivalent widths of C III] from galaxies at z > 5.70 exhibit a wide range of distribution. Our strong limits on C III] emission could be used as a guide for future observations in the reionization epoch.

Julia Kristeva's 1979 essay, 'Le temps des femmes', translated as 'Women's Time' in 1981, most explicitly articulates her approach to feminist thought, addressing women's troubled relationship to patriarchy in terms of time and space. In the essay, Kristeva identifies three distinct positions in the history of feminism: 'equality' feminism, 'difference' feminism; and finally, an anticipated 'third-generation' feminism that will integrate the previous two attitudes, representing what she defines as a new 'signifying space'. The value of the 'third space' is that is offers a method for proceeding beyond the either/or status offered by previous stages of feminist thought and analysis, challenging gender identity per se, and bringing out of the singularity of each individual subject. Women's literature of the interwar period provides a rich source of material in terms of the construction of the gendered subject, as political and military pressures transformed masculine and feminine roles. While literary giants such as Sassoon and Faulkner have committed the experience of the trenches to print, women's writing of this era often explores the effects of the First World War on the community at home, away from the front and its visceral nightmares. This thesis therefore examines the destabilising effect of war on both combatants and civilians as evident in this writing, and each chapter identifies a space in the text where identity is challenged and thrown into debate by the hardships of the War. The resulting signifying space is configured in varying ways, often bringing happiness and personal satisfaction to the protagonist, but it may also represent the darker aspects of Kristevan thought, resulting in negativity and even death.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is an attempt to find out the influence motivation has on employees’ job satisfaction based on our case which is First Bank Nigeria Plc. To be able to meet this objective, several motivation theories were discussed and intrinsic/extrinsic motivational factors as found in related literature were taken into consideration. Methodology: The researchers carried out a qualitative study where secondary data was obtained from textbooks and peer reviewed journal articles from the school library in order to identify existing scientific knowledge concerning this topic. Also, primary data used were collected through Skype interview and through email with the aid of formulated open-ended questions. Both the company and the interviewee were chosen based on convenience sampling. Data obtained underwent a reduction phase as the authors reduced the work into keywords. Data was later organized and emerged patterns were interpreted for better understanding by the reader. Result & Conclusions: From this study, the authors found that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation enhances employees’ job satisfaction. This was evident through the various factors like increment in salary, perceived equality in pay, conducive environment amongst others numerated by respondents as what will increase their satisfaction in the work they do. Limitations: The study is limited to one case company and thirteen respondents from a specific branch. As such the results obtained cannot be easily generalized. Secondly, employees whose job did not connect directly to banking activities like securities, messengers and cleaners were not considered in this study. Scope for further studies: Due to our limitations, we suggest that similar studies should be carried out on the influence of motivation on employees’ job satisfaction in several banks and including securities, messengers and cleaners to see if the results differ from the results of our study. Also our theoretical framework can be extended by showing the influence job satisfaction or job dissatisfaction has on employees’ attitude towards work. Contribution of the thesis: This study contributes to the previous literature on the concept of motivation and job satisfaction especially the influence motivation has on employees’ job satisfaction. The practical implications of this research work for managers is to pay their workers appropriately in order to enhance job satisfaction.

The barrage of negative media reports coupled with reactionary federal legislation have led many Canadians to believe that most First Nation governments are corrupt. Although systematic evidence of widespread corruption has yet to materialize, governance problems in some First Nations communities do exist. With the majority of First Nations operating under the band governance system imposed by the Indian Act, political troubles are often attributed to this law. Despite the fact the Indian Act creates conditions for governance problems to occur, other First Nations have resisted its enticement and operate sound administrations. Nations like these influenced this study. To understand and explain how First Nations achieve and maintain effective governance, conversations took place with First Nations leaders, administrators, Elders and community members in Alberta and BC. The study was conducted using an Indigenous-Qualitative approach where the qualitative aspect involved a grounded theory methodology. Findings show that effective First Nations governance involves an inter-related journey consisting of four phases: motivators of change, visions of effective governance, actions to support effective governance and the maintenance of governance improvements. Every phase in the journey is profoundly shaped by the legacy of colonization. Political problems caused by the legacy motivate change, the journey is guided by visions to recover from the legacy and actions are taken to improve legacy-related governance problems. The power of colonization is particularly evident at the maintenance stage of the journey where legacy-related influences stifle political change and help keep the status quo in place. This observation led to the following hypothesis: First Nations that wish to achieve and maintain effective governance must navigate the legacy of colonization. Colonization creates obstacles that must be carefully navigated if effective First Nations governance is to be achieved. It is amazing that many First Nations leaders have been able to stickhandle their way through these obstacles and achieve some measure of effective governance. These leaders are to be commended for their skills, strength and determination. However, in the absence of decolonization, strong economies, self-government and the restoration of certain traditions, the efforts of these leaders will be lost. / Graduate / terryfox@uvic.ca

At least 60% of First Nation communities in Manitoba, including the Lake Manitoba First Nation, are in wetland areas.47% of First Nations communities in Manitoba served by facultative lagoons failed to achieve the total phosphorus (TP) concentration of 1 mg/L in proposed regulations for effluent discharge into the environment. The Lake Manitoba First Nation community facultative lagoon system treats domestic wastewater and seasonally discharges effluent into a wetland that connects to Lake Manitoba. This research was performed to estimate phosphorus removal efficiency through the natural wetland during the vegetation growing season.The average TP concentration reduction utilizing the natural treatment area of 1.3 ha was more than 70%, achieving the desired total phosphorus below 1 mg/L.These short-term study results indicate the potential of natural wetland treatment applications under cold continental climate conditions, as an effluent polishing step to satisfy regulatory requirements for phosphorus reduction in smaller First Nations communities. / February 2017

Detta examensarbete har behandlat rekryteringsprocessen med fokus på intervjun. Arbetet har avgränsats till att studera icke-verbal kommunikation och mentala genvägar som kan förekomma i en arbetsintervju. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med sju intervjupersoner. Resultatet analyserades med tematisk analys. Forskning om rekryteringsprocessen, intervjumetodik, icke-verbal kommunikation och mentala genvägar användes som bakgrund vid analysen. Resultatet visar att icke-verbal kommunikation påverkar hur en kandidat uppfattas och att även mentala genvägar kan påverka.