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No description available.

Research shows that many immigrant children in Canada face challenges in maintaining their heritage languages, i.e., languages other than English and French or Indigenous languages. Public schools might not recognize or promote the use of heritage languages, many schools do not provide heritage language instruction, and in some instances, students and their parents are actively discouraged from using their heritage language at home. Heritage languages, however, should be maintained to help immigrant students succeed socially and academically and maintain stronger familial bonds. Language maintenance can also lead to multilingualism in a society, facilitating socioeconomic and international relations in the globalized world. In light of these challenges and the importance of maintaining heritage languages, this qualitative case study, informed by the work of critical theorists in the field of additional language education, was undertaken to investigate language maintenance in a heritage language school in a major city in Canada. Issues under investigation included (1) students’, parents’, and teachers’ perspectives on language maintenance, (2) the availability of language maintenance resources at home, school, and in the first language (L1) community, (3) successes and challenges of the students in maintaining their heritage language at home, school, and in the L1 community, and (4) the parents’ and teachers’ effort in facilitating heritage language learning opportunities for children. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, field-observations, descriptive and reflective field notes, and participants’ journal writing. The emerging themes included (1) the importance of language maintenance, (2) language maintenance strategies, and (3) language maintenance challenges. This study sought to raise awareness of language maintenance issues faced by immigrants, in this instance a particular Iranian community in Canada, within the contexts of home, school, and L1 community. In documenting students’ successes and challenges in maintaining their heritage language, heritage language teachers’ experiences as non-mainstream educators, and parents’ efforts to provide heritage language learning opportunities for their children, the research aimed to challenge immigrant students’ education with regard to issues of equity. Results are intended to inform immigrant families and communities, and programming and policy to facilitate language maintenance opportunities for children in Canada and other immigrant-receiving contexts.

The benefits of maintenance have been known for centuries, and throughout history these benefits have been the basis for much discussion. Recently such benefits have been formally proposed in terms of scheduled or cyclical maintenance programs. These programs have been developed for important historic buildings; yet the same benefits can be applied to any house. This concept is the basis of this thesis.The thesis begins with a discussion of the obvious need for some maintenance program and describes the recent interest of local governments in some form of maintenance planning, discussing the benefits of an organized approach to maintenance. Next it briefly reviews the beginnings and history of maintenance theories and is followed by a discussion of maintenance as a level of conservation of building. Basic statistics about homeowners and the development of the survey are addressed, which leads to the presentation of compiled results of the survey and a interpretation of the data. The conclusion indicates a direction for the development of an organized maintenance plan.

This research project discusses the life-cycle analysis of wind turbines through the processing of operational data from two modern European wind farms. A methodology for SCADA data processing has been developed combining previous research findings and in-house experience followed by statistical analysis of the results. The analysis was performed by dividing the wind turbine into assemblies and the failures events in severity categories. Depending on the failure severity category a different statistical methodology was applied, examining the reliability growth and the applicability of the “bathtub curve” concept for wind turbine reliability analysis. Finally, a methodology for adapting the results of the statistical analysis to site-specific environmental conditions is proposed.

Context: Modifiable risk factors in older methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) patients may put them at a greater risk of acquiring chronic diseases. The paucity of literature regarding the well-being and service needs of older MMT patients required investigation to determine whether these patients are treated for and adhere to chronic disease medications(s) comparably to those not on MMT. Objective: This study compared the proportion of MMT patients to a matched control group treated with first-line medications for four chronic diseases: hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes mellitus and depression. As a secondary outcome measure, this study also examined the adherence comparability between the two groups. Method: This case control study used prescription claims data from the BC Ministry of Health’s PharmaNet database from October 1, 2008 to December 31, 2009. Each MMT patient was individually matched with a control subject in terms of age, sex, social assistance coverage and local health area. Both groups consisted of 143 men and 56 women for a total of 400 participants. Persons 50 years of age and older, residents of BC, and had prescriptions filled during October 1, 2008 to December 31, 2009, were randomly selected from the PharmaNet database. Results: Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated to compare the odds of MMT patients to non-MMT patients on a first-line medication for each chronic disease under investigation. ORs were 0.865 for hypertension (ns), 0.738 for diabetes (ns) and 4.176 for depression (p <0.001). For COPD the OR could not be calculated as no controls were treated for COPD; however, 11.6% of the MMT group were prescribed COPD medications which was significantly higher than the controls (p<.001). Adherence was calculated using continuous measures of medication availability (CMA) “by patient” and “by medication class” during patients’ persistent periods (continuous use periods) CMA(1), as well as the entire study period CMA(2). By patient, the mean CMA(1) showed no difference between the groups (non-MMT group: 91.9%, SD=15.8, CI=95% vs MMT group: 89.7%, SD=22.2, CI=95%). The mean CMA(2) was statistically different (p<0.05) between the groups (non-MMT group: 70.5%, SD=25.3, CI=95% vs MMT group: 60.8%, SD=29.1, CI=95%). By medication class, CMA(1) was 80-100% for most medication classes for both groups except for insulins and inhalers in the MMT group which fell between 40-79%. The CMA(2) for most medication classes was 60-86% in the non-MMT group and 30-76% in the MMT group. However, the differences between the groups were not statistically significant. Conclusion: Odds ratios for the treatment of all four chronic diseases differed. Therefore, looking at each chronic disease separately may be worthwhile to suggest potential targets for intervention. Disease-specific tailored interventions related to lifestyle risk factors, comorbid medical conditions, and adherence to chronic medications could potentially improve the overall health of older MMT patients. However, development of appropriate interventions and treatments requires research that properly recognizes the physical and mental health problems faced by older MMT patients (Rosen, Hunsaker, Albert, Cornelius, & Reynolds III, 2010). / Graduate

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Municipalities and contractors in Canada and other parts of the world rely on road surface condition information during and after a snow storm to optimize maintenance operations and planning. With an ever increasing demand for safer and more sustainable road network there is an ever increasing demand for more reliable, accurate and up-to-date road surface condition information while working with the limited available resources. Such high dependence on road condition information is driving more and more attention towards analyzing the reliability of current technology as well as developing new and more innovative methods for monitoring road surface condition. This research provides an overview of the various road condition monitoring technologies in use today. A new machine vision based mobile road surface condition monitoring system is proposed which has the potential to produce high spatial and temporal coverage. The proposed approach uses multiple models calibrated according to local pavement color and environmental conditions potentially providing better accuracy compared to a single model for all conditions. Once fully developed, this system could potentially provide intermediate data between the more reliable xed monitoring stations, enabling the authorities with a wider coverage without a heavy extra cost. The up to date information could be used to better plan maintenance strategies and thus minimizing salt use and maintenance costs.

Previous research has demonstrated that pool-riffle bedforms play a critical role in channel stability and ecosystem health in many natural gravel-bed channels. Although the bedform length is known to scale with channel width, no experimental research has yet isolated the effect of bedform length on pool-riffle hydrodynamics. To improve the understanding of the hydrodynamics of these bedforms so that they can be better incorporated in restoration practices, flume experiments were conducted testing the flow at seven different bedform lengths. Velocity profiles are measured in a 17 m flume with movable PVC bedforms using ultrasonic velocity profilers (UVPs). Smooth two-dimensional (no sinuosity) bedforms are used in order to isolate the key dynamics in convective acceleration and deceleration. The angle of transition between pool and riffle heights was 7°, so that permanent flow separation did not occur. Parameters calculated from the velocity and turbulence profiles include the Coles’ wake parameter (a measure of the deviation from the log law), shear stress estimated from the velocity profile, shear stress estimated from the Reynolds shear stress, and vertical velocity. From the individual velocity time series, the integral length scale and the integral time scales are also calculated. Overall, the length of riffles and pools exert a fundamental control on the distribution of flow and turbulence within a channel. In the pool, energy is dissipated both through turbulence and as the flow is redistributed to uniform flow conditions. In the riffle, kinetic energy increases as the flow velocity increases, and as the length increases, the flow moves towards a new uniform flow condition. The results start to explain the reasons behind the persistent scaling relation between width and bedform length. It can be concluded that uniform flow conditions exist at the end of the pool when the bedform length ratio is greater than approximately 1:5.0 when the riffle length is held constant, and that uniform flow conditions are no longer observed at the end of the pool when the bedform length ratio exceeds 1:7.0 when the pool length is held constant. Future research should concentrate on extending the results to include three-dimensional pool-riffle configurations, repeating bedform configurations, internal scaling parameters, and sediment transport. Ultimately, as the hydrodynamics of pool-riffle sequences are better understood, better bedform designs can be implemented in restoration projects.

Deregulated and competitive power market places utilities under high pressure to assure providing power with a satisfactory level of power continuity. This objective entails a high level of reliability which in turn demands a high financial budget for design, operation, and maintenance. Therefore, the need for utilities to balance these factors has been increasing to become the core of a utility's asset management activities. Maintenance is a key aspect of asset management. The main objective of maintenance is to extend the lifetime of equipment and/or reduce the probability of failure. Maintenance activities play an important role in improving system reliability by keeping the condition of a system's equipment within an acceptable level. Generally speaking, technical requirements and budget constraints are the most influential factors in assigning maintenance activities. The most cost-effective maintenance approach is the approach that can sustain a high level of reliability while maintenance cost is minimized. The transformer has a significant role in the power system due to its remarkable effect on the overall level of reliability in addition to its extensive investments in the power grid. Transformer management is comprised of identifying the appropriate type and frequency to maintain the transformer, and the appropriate time to replace the transformer in a cost-effective manner. The essential objective of this thesis is to introduce a novel framework for transformer management. An approach which links maintenance and replacement decisions is presented in this thesis. This approach proposes a methodical decision-making system to determine the optimal time to replace the transformer. Indeed, the proposed approach essentially investigates the cost-effectiveness of replacing the transformer both before and after the lifetime is extended by maintenance. To properly investigate the effect of maintenance, maintenance activities should first be scheduled effectively. Therefore, this approach introduces a maintenance strategy based on reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) concept and genetic algorithm (GA) to optimally schedule maintenance activities. Two replacement studies are conducted: with and without the effect of maintenance. A comparison between replacement studies is discussed in the proposed approach.