No description available.

A 7.09 m lacustrine sediment core was taken from Mariana Lake, Alberta (55º57'N, 112º01'W) to determine if the regional vegetational complex had been affected by the mid-Holocene Hypsithermal. Dating control was provided by 6 radiocarbon dates, with a second degree polynomial fitted to the dates to give an age to depth curve. The basal date of the core is 11 300 ± 110 yr BP. Fossil pollen analysis of the core revealed five distinct pollen zones. Between 11 856 and 10 434 yr BP the study site supported a sparse herb dominated vegetation. A spruce and shrub birch assemblage followed, from 10 434 to 9 100 yr BP, with increased vegetation density. The climate was likely similar to today. This was replaced by a paper birch and spruce complex from 9 100 to 7 638 yr BP likely as a result of warming climate. A mild Hypsithermal effect is recorded between 7 638 and 5 623 yr BP. A forest of decreased crown density was created, with spruce, paper birch and poplar being the major vegetational components. Modern conditions have existed at the site from 5 623 yr BP onwards, though it is hypothesised the regional water budget may have increased slightly around 2 228 yr BP; increased peat development appears to have occurred at this time. Through the use of difference diagrams the site is compared to three other published sites which, along with Mariana Lake, form a north-south transect from the southern Boreal Forest to the northern Alberta Boreal Forest. The hypsithermal vegetation changes varies with distance to the Parkland-Boreal Forest ecotone boundary. It is concluded the parkland did not reach Mariana Lake during the mid-Holocene, though conditions at the site became similar to those at the southern edge of the Boreal Forest that is proximal to the parkland. / Thesis / Bachelor of Arts (BA)

No description available.

Factors other than academic ones are important in the selection of the members of any profession, and in nursing it could quite well be that those non-academic elements are rather weighted in determining the success or failure of student nurses because of the very nature of their work. This thesis will look at academic as well as other factors that may influence the success of student nurses.

The Parkland School Shooting in February 2018 caused a flood of empathy, grief, and anger on Twitter. Having gained popularity and a reputation for her political commentary on US American events on the social media platform, the British author J. K. Rowling published a variety of intriguing tweets following and regarding the Shooting. The pur-pose of this study is to characterise Rowling’s tweets, to relate them to the discursive Twitter practice, and to look for correspondences with the concept of celebrity advocacy. To do so, this thesis offers an adaption of critical discourse analysis in order to examine the structures, meanings, and stances behind Rowling’s tweets following and regarding the Shooting. To grasp the underlying ideologies and motives, theory of discourse, repre-sentation, celebrity advocacy, spectatorship of suffering, and othering is consulted. The study brings to light that Rowling’s tweets are characterized by dialogue, exploitation of voices, othering, and discursive constructions of distance and proximity. Moreover, the findings stress Rowling’s tweets in the light of self-presentation and performance of altru-ism. Ultimately, the study reveals that Rowling’s tweets exhibit a highly mediated form of celebrity advocacy empowered by the practical circumstances of Twitter as social media platform.

We examined the radial growth - climate association of a disjunct population of white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) at its southern limit of distribution. Forty-four white spruce tree islands were sampled over four mixed-grass prairie preserves in the Spruce Woods Provincial Park located in the forestprairie boundary of southwestern Manitoba. Reduced radial growth occurred during the 1910s, 1930s, early 1960s, and the late 1970s to the early 1980s and corresponded to periods of drought on the Canadian prairies, and the Great Plains of the United States. Correlation and response function coefficients indicated that conditions in the summer and fall of the previous year (t-1), and the summer of the current year (t) strongly influenced white spruce growth. Growth was positively correlated with August-September (t-1) and May-June-July (t) precipitation and moisture index (precipitation minus potential evapotranspiration). Radial growth was positively associated with June-July-August (t) river discharge. Growth was most correlated with maximum and mean temperature compared with minimum temperature. Precipitation and maximum temperature accounted for the greatest variation in radial growth (61%). The results suggest that white spruce growth is sensitive to climatic fluctuations because growth is restricted by moisture deficiency exacerbated by temperature-induced drought stress.

In this study, I examine the extent to which students’ rights to free speech and expression were violated in response to the nationwide school walkouts that took place during the spring of 2018. Students hold the right to political speech and expression under the landmark Supreme Court Case, Tinker v. Des Moines (1969). However, the rights students maintain to participate in protest during school hours is somewhat unclear. Using a two-pronged case study analysis, I explore the question of student rights and potential violations in the face of protest through examining school disciplinary responses alongside disciplinary policy and disciplinary policy in the context of Tinker. Findings highlight a widespread gap in school and district-level policy specific to protest or other types of political expression and the need for such policy when protecting the rights students hold under Tinker.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, page: 3552. Adviser: T. Robert Harris. Includes bibliographical references.

Non-forested ecosystems dominate high elevation sites in coastal British Columbia, yet there has never been a comprehensive classification or mapping of all high-elevation community types. The objective of this study is to collate and expand upon previous classifications, and thereby to increase our understanding of the habitats and composition of these plant communities.

This report expands and clarifies previous classifications of non-forested plant communities from upper subalpine and alpine locations in coastal British Columbia. A total of 80 plots (releves) sampled specifically for this study were added to 202 releves from published and unpublished studies conducted since 1963. We used tabular and multivariate methods to synthesize and classify plant communities according to the Braun-Blanquet approach. Plant communities were classified into 37 vegetation units (associations or subassociations) which served as the basis of the resulting hierarchical classification. We describe the habitat and species composition of these vegetation units and their relationship to units recogized elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. We then present eight generalized habitat types which we propose as the basic units for future ecosystem mapping. Each of these habitat types includes a predictable mosaic of vegetation units whose pattern occurs at too fine a scale to map individually.