The most surprising outcome from the Victoria School of Art and Design's first half century is that it survived into its second. How it survived, and how it almost failed to, is the subject of this thesis. The main argument is that community support for the VSAD, or lack of it, was based more on pragmatic concerns, rather than on whether people liked the art being produced. Among those concerns, the most talked about was art training for employable skills. Led by Anna Leonowens, who later became the subject of the musical The King and I, well-to-do citizens in Halifax, Nova Scotia founded the VSAD in 1887. In 1925 the school changed its name to the Nova Scotia College of Art. Its current name, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, came in 1969, the year that the College became what was then the only autonomous degree granting art institution in Canada. As part of an international movement, the VSAD shared its late nineteenth century origins with similar art schools throughout North America, Europe, Britain and its colonies. Many of these schools also shared common purposes: to sharpen the graphic skills of industrial designers, to provide instruction in the fine and decorative arts, and to train drawing teachers for public and private schools. Of the different groups supporting the Halifax school, women and their organizations were the most consistent and consequential, especially Halifax's Local Council of Women. A properly funded art school, they argued, could generate jobs, stimulate economic gains, and foster higher standards of civic culture within the community. This study looks at the VSAD's supporters, teachers, and administrators during its first half century. It describes how the school, with its inadequate enrolment, budget, and space, played a limited role in generating art-related employment before the Great War. It is only with the principalship of Elizabeth Styring Nutt from 1919 to 1943, with her strong community connections and decades-long commitment to training artist-workers, that the school finally gained relative security and success.

Human societies may be modeled as very large complex systems involving multiple flows of energy and materials between different sectors. Traditional exergy analysis methods are inadequate for the analysis of such systems because they do not take non-energetic flows into account. Extended exergy analysis (EEA) allows for the inclusion of exergetic equivalents of such non-energetic quantities as labor, capital and the costs of environmental remediation. The economy is divided into seven sectors reflecting the organization of economic data reported by Statistics Canada. A model of the structural connectivity of the economy in terms of exchanges between sectors is constructed using economic data generated by Statistic Canada. Energy, exergy, and extended exergy efficiencies are calculated for each sector of the economy of Nova Scotia and compared with those of Norway, China, Italy, and the UK to identify similarities and differences between the composition and performance of sectors around the world.

The term ‘bicultural’ has been gaining acknowledgment in sociological and psycho-social research and literature. It refers to identity construction which internalizes more than one cultural identity by an individual. This thesis uses qualitative methods and a grounded theory research design to explore how bicultural (biracial and bisexual) people navigate identity and community in Nova Scotia. While similar research has been conducted on racial and sexual identities elsewhere, this study looks to fill some of the gaps in bicultural research by specifically dealing with it in an Atlantic Canadian context. Living in a social environment steeped in historical discrimination and political struggle exerts significant influence on the identities and communities of bicultural people in Nova Scotia. The thesis research findings suggest that while social environment often creates divisions and dichotomy when interpreting bicultural identities, bicultural people manage to maintain an integrated sense of self within this environment.

The use of forest biomass (by thermal combustion to electricity processes), has been recognized by the Government of Nova Scotia (NS) as one option which could help meet short- and long term energy generation goals (aggressively set at 25% and 40% by 2015 and 2020 respectively). However, while approximately 77% of NS land area is forest covered, there is significant concern about the sustainability and stewardship of this natural resource. This controversy inspired a deeper investigation into the attitudes towards forest biomass held by one particular stakeholder group—small-woodland owners—and also the rural community members living in the same regions. 51% of the forested area in NS is owned by small-private woodland owners and as such, they will play an integral role in the future of NS’s forest economy and sustainability. How these stakeholders feel about the forests, the alternative uses for forest biomass and its use in large scale energy production could have a significant impact on the future of forest biomass use - particularly for energy - in NS. 489 small-woodland owners responded to mail-out surveys and 14 rural community members participated in three focus groups. Three major findings emerged. Firstly, it was found that the acceptability of using forest products varied depending on multiple factors— the source of biomass, harvesting methods, and [predicted] end-use. Secondly, forest sustainability and keeping resources local were the two most important concerns amongst respondents. Finally, respondents felt that better collaboration with other stakeholders and objective education around the issues would be the best strategies to overcoming these concerns.

Prevalence rates for adolescent depressive symptoms differ significantly between males and females. Explanatory models are unable to adequately clarify why this difference exists. To enhance understanding of gender differences, the role of intrapersonal risk factors body dissatisfaction (BD) and disordered eating behaviour (DEB) were investigated using secondary data from a sample of high school students from industrial Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Results showed that 32.4% of females and 20.6% of males experienced depressive symptoms over the past week. Both genders were at an increased risk for depressive symptoms if they had BD (OR male 1.71, OR female 1.39) or DEB (OR male 3.35, OR female 3.40). Findings indicated that males and females shared similar rather than differing risk behaviour profiles in relation to depressive symptoms with respect to DEB.

This population-based retrospective cohort study describes breastfeeding patterns and identifies the determinants of longer exclusive breastfeeding among 4,533 mother-infants pairs in two regions of Nova Scotia, Canada between 2006 and 2009. Multivariate logistic and proportional hazard regression analyses were used to model breastfeeding practices. While 64.1% (95% CI=62.7-65.5) of mothers initiated breastfeeding, only 10.4% (9.5-11.4) of mothers exclusively breastfed for the recommended six months; 21% (19.7-22.3) of mothers continued to breastfeed at six months, but not exclusively. Six risk factors are independently associated with poorer breastfeeding practices: lower maternal education, no partner, higher pre-pregnancy body mass index, smoking during pregnancy, no breast contact between dyads within one hour of birth, and no intention of breastfeeding. Rates of exclusive breastfeeding remain lower in these districts than elsewhere in Canada. Understanding determinants of longer exclusive breastfeeding is critical to assist policy makers and health care providers in better supporting mothers and newborns.

No description available.

The upper Bay of Fundy's Cumberland Basin contains an estimated 16,500 hectares of salt marsh, nearly all of which have been diked and converted to agricultural lands since the arrival of the Acadians in the late 17 th century. John Lusby Marsh is a 600 ha salt marsh that was diked and farmed for approximately 250 years, until dikes breached in the late 1940s and the marsh was restored to tidal conditions. A sediment core that contained the reclamation surface was extracted in John Lusby Marsh, and a trial set of eight fossil pollen spectra was compared to the modern analogues. Discriminant analysis classified the fossil samples into a plausible sequence of historic land uses which included phases when the marsh was diked and farmed. A comparison of the soil characteristics and pollen spectra from this study to those in a previously published study of a nearby salt marsh at Amherst N.S. suggest that flooding of a dikeland was misinterpreted as a sudden increase in the rate of sea level rise. Historical air photos support this conclusion by showing that the sampling location was indeed diked and farmed before the 1940s.

This thesis examines the history of the Mi'kmaq people inhabiting Kmitkinag (Nova Scotia) and Unimaki (Cape Breton Island) from before contact to 1760. While contact precipitated change in Mi'kmaq society, the process was gradual, the result of the particular historical circumstances in which interactions between the two societies evolved. In the late seventeenth century, the Mi'kmaq established an alliance with the French Crown, made possible by previous social and economic relationships between Mi'kmaq families and French traders, fishermen and settlers. As European settlement increased and imperial rivalry in North America intensified in the eighteenth century, tensions emerged in the alliance, revealing the cultural differences between the Mi'kmaq and France's subjects. The thesis demonstrates that economic and political factors were more important than national identity in influencing the texture of Mi'kmaq-European relations.

No description available.