The Canadian firm of Jacques & Hay was in business for fifty years, during which the company, if The Globe (Toronto) is to be believed, furnished the Province of Canada. This was a stunning and largely undocumented success. Jacques & Hay was one of the largest employers in the province and dominated the cabinet-making trade from 1835 to 1885. In 1871, Jacques & Hay employed 430 men and 50 women in a vertically-integrated operation that included a sawmill, two factories and a showroom. Jacques & Hay produced abundant furniture at reasonable prices. The availability of such household furnishings greatly enhanced domestic life in nineteenth-century Canada, providing scope for a more elaborate social life and allowing more people to achieve a greater sense of comfort and decency in their living arrangements.

Social workers are increasingly being called upon to work with clients who wish to have a child but are unable to do so without medical intervention. This study, a cross-sectional survey design, examines the attitudes of couples towards donor insemination (DI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), contractual pregnancy, adoption and living child free. A random sample of 200 names was drawn from the membership of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada, Toronto Chapter. Surveys were completed by 74 participants (37 couples). Participants were generally well educated, affluent and ranged in age from 26 to 63 years. Women were one third more likely to report feeling pressure to have children than were men. The source of this pressure was most often reported to be external/interpersonal relationships (e.g., friends, family, partner). Women were significantly more likely to strongly agree that they would use DI or IVF if they were infertile; whereas, men were more likely to only agree when considering DI, and to be unsure or neutral when considering IVF. The possibility of living child free was an alternative that very few participants had seriously considered, as many were still pursuing one or more reproductive alternative. Although significant differences were found within couples for DI, IVF and living child free in the vignettes, unexpectedly an overall theme of agreement between women and men was found as well. In addition, participants revealed a desire for support in their consideration of, and decision making regarding, the reproductive alternatives they may pursue. Clearly, the findings point to the need participants have to receive counselling, and/or follow-up to help them cope with their infertility and the possibility that they may not be able to have children.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) are of interest because the technology offers a significant opportunity to reduce the overall costs of solar energy. OSCs can be very inexpensive to produce given that they rely on non-commodity materials and can use existing manufacturing techniques that are not labour- and capital-intensive. In this research, a financial model, named TEEOS (Technological and Economic Evaluator for Organic Solar), is developed and is used to determine financial indicators, such as simple payback period. These indicators are used to determine technical objectives for the OSCs. Two sample cells are evaluated in Toronto, Canada using historical data. The results show that the cell with a higher efficiency and wider absorptive wavelength range produces a payback period of approximately nine years, while the other cell has a payback period well over 45 years. Stochastic modeling techniques are also used to better replicate electricity price and weather fluctuations.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, waterfront cities expanded over wetlands and shallow water by building land on which to build the city. Today, this artificial land is threatened by a range of environmental hazards. This increases the risk of natural disaster for people occupying the area. A framework for risk analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to create maps based on the formula: ‘Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability’ is proposed. This methodology is demonstrated in four case study cities - Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay (Port Lands), Boston’s Back Bay, New Orleans’ Lakefront and Montreal’s Point St. Charles (Technoparc) – to show that census tracts that are both socially and environmentally vulnerable ought to take precedence in disaster prevention and relief efforts. Created land is inherently more hazardous than the adjacent natural land and requires planning focused on targeting and responding to the documented hazards.

New district heating systems in Toronto have the potential for significant financial and environmental gains. Through the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and the data required to estimate heating loads, heat maps were generated on a building-by-building basis for over 4400 buildings at nine different intersections in Toronto. School locations and planned construction maps were used to enhance the data and demonstrate the benefit of considering factors beyond finance and the environment. Out of the intersections studied, Yonge and Eglinton; Yonge and Sheppard; and Yonge and Empress held the largest heating loads. Individual building data allowed for plant locations to be suggested based on their proportional distance to the highest loads. GIS allowed for the visualization of the vast quantity of data. The opportunities for improvement include increasing the availability of location-based data and the application of the methodology to other areas of infrastructure planning and decision making.

Over the course of the second half of the twentieth century, undergraduate degree requirements in the Faculty of Arts (later the Faculty of Arts & Science) at the University of Toronto were comprehensively reviewed and revised seven times. The records of these reviews demonstrate that the curricular changes of the second half of the twentieth century were substantial, reflecting attempts by curricular planners to shape the undergraduate program of study to accommodate broader social, economic, demographic, and epistemological changes. These changes therefore reflect the connections between the University and its local, provincial, and international communities. These substantial changes, however, are balanced by consistent and recurrent patterns in curriculum across this period as curricular planners sought ways to implement sustained curricular goals into a changed institutional environment and a changed curricular framework. Collectively, these reviews demonstrate that the U of T maintained a distinct approach to undergraduate education from the beginning of this period through the end. This approach, referred to here as the “Toronto Scheme,” is characterized by the belief that specialized study can lead to liberal education, and that students should have access to multiple pathways through the degree. This analysis of degree requirements over time has important implications for understanding higher education at the University of Toronto, in Canada, and internationally. Most importantly, this research helps to explain both the strong similarities and significant differences between American curricular structures and those in place at the U of T. Additionally, this study of curriculum provides valuable insight into the role of the U of T’s colleges in undergraduate instruction, further illuminating the effect of this relatively unique institutional structure on the history of the U of T. On a broader scale, the relationship indicated by this history of the curriculum between the U of T and other institutions in Ontario and Canada deepens our understanding of the nature of a Canadian system of or approach to higher education (or lack thereof). As such, the Toronto Scheme informs – and sometimes challenges – many of the assumptions currently made about Ontario, Canadian, and North American higher education.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) are of interest because the technology offers a significant opportunity to reduce the overall costs of solar energy. OSCs can be very inexpensive to produce given that they rely on non-commodity materials and can use existing manufacturing techniques that are not labour- and capital-intensive. In this research, a financial model, named TEEOS (Technological and Economic Evaluator for Organic Solar), is developed and is used to determine financial indicators, such as simple payback period. These indicators are used to determine technical objectives for the OSCs. Two sample cells are evaluated in Toronto, Canada using historical data. The results show that the cell with a higher efficiency and wider absorptive wavelength range produces a payback period of approximately nine years, while the other cell has a payback period well over 45 years. Stochastic modeling techniques are also used to better replicate electricity price and weather fluctuations.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, waterfront cities expanded over wetlands and shallow water by building land on which to build the city. Today, this artificial land is threatened by a range of environmental hazards. This increases the risk of natural disaster for people occupying the area. A framework for risk analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to create maps based on the formula: ‘Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability’ is proposed. This methodology is demonstrated in four case study cities - Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay (Port Lands), Boston’s Back Bay, New Orleans’ Lakefront and Montreal’s Point St. Charles (Technoparc) – to show that census tracts that are both socially and environmentally vulnerable ought to take precedence in disaster prevention and relief efforts. Created land is inherently more hazardous than the adjacent natural land and requires planning focused on targeting and responding to the documented hazards.

By analyzing surveys, census data, policies and curriculum, it is demonstrated that the Toronto District School Board’s policies for equitable, anti-heterosexist, and anti-homophobic curriculum become stymied by how students and sex are routinely treated as subjects of moral control in curriculum. According to Gilles Deleuze's (1988) interpretation of Baruch Spinoza's (1632-1677) philosophical works, the distinction between morals and ethics is also the difference between slavery and freedom. Together with theoretical perspectives of sex and sexuality from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin, the distinction between morals and ethics works to specify how particular discourses of sex can work to enslave or to empower students. Comprehension and circulation of the distinction between morals and ethics is proposed to increase the potential for curriculum to reciprocate with students’ individual learning needs, support the free and autonomous organization of desire, and promote the possibility of a democratic, inclusive, pluralistic, and secular society.

New district heating systems in Toronto have the potential for significant financial and environmental gains. Through the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and the data required to estimate heating loads, heat maps were generated on a building-by-building basis for over 4400 buildings at nine different intersections in Toronto. School locations and planned construction maps were used to enhance the data and demonstrate the benefit of considering factors beyond finance and the environment. Out of the intersections studied, Yonge and Eglinton; Yonge and Sheppard; and Yonge and Empress held the largest heating loads. Individual building data allowed for plant locations to be suggested based on their proportional distance to the highest loads. GIS allowed for the visualization of the vast quantity of data. The opportunities for improvement include increasing the availability of location-based data and the application of the methodology to other areas of infrastructure planning and decision making.