This research explores how concepts of women’s independence are constituted, through neo-liberal and feminist discourses, by members of a feminist organization for women leaving abuse. Analysis of eight interviews and eight focus groups with organizational members, collected over a four year period, surface contesting discourses about individualism, choice, economic independence, collectivity and structural analyses. These discourses interact to produce complex conceptualizations of women’s independence, and produced new subjectivities for women within the organization. In the data, neo-liberal and feminist influences produced an integration of self-responsibility and collectivity, creating new ways of understanding women’s agency. Knowledge of these changing notions of gendered independence in organizations allows feminists to be strategic and reflexive about feminist political work within changing social and political terrain.

Gender has developed as an important ‘public and political’ category throughout the Twentieth Century in BC and Canada as the basis of feminist demands on society and governments. In 2007, gender has become ‘privatized’ and increasingly erased from government institutions. The de-politicization of gender in Canada is an example of a shifting social consciousness and political discourse that avoids a critical perspective on the social context and places an increasing emphasis on the individual. A new critical discourse must grapple with these challenges, emerge at some distance from government and coincide with a political activism that has resonance in women’s lives.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami created a catastrophic disturbance at several scales along the entire Andaman Sea coast. As the first large-scale tsunami occurring in recent history, this event provided a unique opportunity to use modern instrumentation and in situ observation to study tsunami dynamics and effects on coastal systems. Along Thailand’s coast, consequences of this disturbance were highly variable in space and time, with pronounced changes to certain coral reefs and human communities. This thesis outlines two case study-based research projects designed to gain some understanding of the ecological and social dynamics of the tsunami in Thailand. From a Geographical perspective, responses to this massive disturbance may support an incentive-based direction for marine conservation in Thailand. The first project occurred within Mu Koh Surin Marine National Park, Thailand. Variability in the physical response of fringing hard coral reefs to the tsunami was examined using SCUBA surveys. Patterns in variability were distinct from typical hard coral responses during tropical storms suggesting differences in the nature of these hydrodynamic disturbances. Coral colony morphologies and reef shape mainly did not influence variability in tsunami response; however, unique effects were observed on reef slopes over 45°. There was no detected influence of reef depth. Variability in effects based on the spatial location of reefs was observed: proximity to bathymetrical constrictions accounted for substantial variability, while reef aspect did not. Overall, just over 10% of sampled reef area was affected, with evidence of rapid coral recovery in the form of tissue re-growth and apical skeletal growth within four months of the event at most sites. The second project explored the effects of the tsunami on Phuket’s diving industry. The response of industry members and recreational divers to tsunami effects was examined using interviews and questionnaires as well as observational dives with dive guides and clients on chartered trips during the 2004-5 post-tsunami diving season. A short-term reduction in the number of diving companies and diving tourism in Phuket was observed immediately following the tsunami; this can be attributed to terrestrial damage and trip cancellations. Although there were expectations for high levels of dive site damage, most recreational divers did not perceive any damage on dive sites in 2005 – even while diving on surveyed sites with as much as 76-100% of reef area reportedly affected. This low rate of perception may be partially explained by diving ability, but was more likely due to site variability and variability in tsunami response within dive sites allowing guides to preferentially avoid acutely damaged areas. During the post-tsunami low tourism period, industry members contributed substantial resources to rescue, relief and restoration efforts along Thailand’s Andaman Sea Coast. Industry members also participated in several government and university-led tsunami monitoring and rehabilitation efforts. While measurable changes to Phuket’s diving industry seem to have been short-term, this response of industry members to the event may have increased potential for long-term collaboration with government and universities. Enhanced communication among these parties could facilitate future incentive-driven industry contributions toward marine conservation in Thailand.

Diagnostic biases against individuals of advanced age or few years of formal education exist because age and education are commonly related to performance on cognitive tests, thus, demographic corrections for these tests are used. Corrections are complicated, however, by an association between demographic variables and dementia diagnoses. This dissertation examined the dementia diagnostic accuracy of demographic corrections for cognitive tests. Experiment I tested whether, in the context of skewed tests that violate the statistical assumptions of linearity and homoscedasticity, the accuracy of demographically-corrected test scores would be reduced. Experiment II tested whether demographic corrections would only be appropriate for biased factors instead of the total score for multifactorial tests. Experiment III explored whether demographic corrections would be inappropriate under conditions where the dementia pathology overrides the association between cognitive test scores and demographic variables. Experiment IV explored whether demographic corrections would be inappropriate in conditions where the demographic variables were, in themselves, risk factors for dementia, as this would remove predictive variance. Experiment V explored aspects particular to regression-based demographic corrections that might adversely affect diagnostic accuracy. Experiments I to V were simulation-based; consequently Experiment VI explored replication of these findings using regression adjusted scores in a previously collected clinical database. Finally, Experiment VII used clinical data in conjunction with published clinical normative data with demographic-stratification to test the generalizability of these findings to clinical practice. Using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve comparisons, the use of demographically-corrected scores repeatedly failed to improve upon the dementia diagnostic accuracy of uncorrected cognitive test scores, regardless of whether these corrections were regression-based or based on demographically stratified normative data. Demographic corrections reduced dementia diagnostic accuracy when cognitive test scores were skewed or when adjustments were regression-based and demographic variables were risk factors for dementia. The use of demographic corrections when dementia pathology supersedes any association between cognitive test scores and demographic variables does not impact the relative diagnostic accuracy of demographically-corrected versus uncorrected test scores. Overall, these results suggest that the use of demographic corrections for cognitive test scores is highly cautioned when the goal is to maximize dementia diagnostic accuracy.

Members of the Canadian Forces (CF) have a distinctive work environment, where status within the hierarchy is clearly displayed on uniform dress and lower ranks are to dutifully obey the commands from above. The aim of this study was to explore the salient issues related to control for regular force non-commissioned CF members. Perceived job control has been associated with individual health and productivity; however, until now has not been explored in the military context. Surveys, semi-structured interviews, and a focus group were utilized to capture key factors influencing CF members’ (N = 29) sense of job control. Inferential statistics and thematic analysis were utilized for the organization and interpretation of the data. The results from this mixed method design found important workplace factors to influence the perception of job control, which stem from three interrelated areas: workplace characteristics, co-worker cohesion, and individual characteristics. The findings indicate the role of the supervisor is an important aspect of job control due to the hierarchical structure of the military. The members utilized individual coping strategies as a means to manage their working environment such as acceptance of their situation and adopting compromising behaviours, some of which are deeply embedded in the military culture. Co-worker cohesion was also found to be beneficial for CF members particularly during operational deployments, although the extent and type of cohesion remains unclear. Exploring job control from the perspective of CF members was important to elucidate the relationship between job control and health. Interestingly, the findings did not support a relationship between job control and job performance; this may be due the limited perception of performance in low control work settings. These findings argue for the implementation of policies and practice to improve health and performance in the workplace and must focus on several aspects of work design to include opportunities for employee support in and beyond the workplace, effective leadership practices, and the facilitation of appropriate coping skills for sustainable performance in the military work environment. These findings may have implications for similar work settings such as: law enforcement, emergency responders, factory workers, and some government agencies.

Gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus Lilljeborg) forage predominantly on hyper-benthic mysids (Mysidae) along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The role of mysids in the abundance and distribution of foraging gray whales prompted interest in this study. I relate the inter- and intra-annual foraging behaviour of gray whales to the number of mysid patches and biomass through boat based surveys of foraging whales, and the application of acoustic techniques for estimating mysid prey. I examine the spatial pattern of foraging gray whales and the 10 m isobath. The abundance and distribution of mysid patches are more common at a water depth of 10 m, and the likely mechanism driving the spatial pattern between foraging gray whales and the 10 m isobath. I examine whale abundance and distribution patterns during three consecutive foraging seasons. More whales forage in years when mysid prey are more abundant, and mysid patches are of larger size and higher in biomass. Whales have a considerable top-down effect on mysid populations. Years of heavy whale predation depletes mysid stocks. Mysid populations tend to increase in years of low whale activity. I examine whale abundance and distribution patterns of habitat use during a foraging season along the southwest coast of Flores Island and Nootka Sound. The abundance of mysid patches and biomass in Nootka Sound does not influence the whales’ use of Flores Island; rather the whales exploited both areas concurrently. This study expands the understanding of gray whale habitat use along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

This work addresses two areas of computational biology: automation of sequence processing and an assessment of the evidence for a hypothesized salmonid genome based on an analysis of a set of expressed sequence tags. Three problem areas in sequence processing are addressed in the first half of the work. Chapter 3 describes an accurate technique for trimming of vector, adapter and poly(A) sequence. Chapter 4 suggests methods for verifying the accuracy of assembled mRNA transcripts despite a large number of chimeras in the cDNA clone libraries. Chapter 5 is concerned with the problem of estimating the number of transcripts in a tissue or cDNA library, concluding that computational and statistical techniques are inadequate to estimate the quantity accurately. The hypothesized salmonid genome duplication has been widely accepted since 1984. If it occurred, it should have left evidence in the form of many paralogous pairs of genes, all at approximately the same degree of sequence divergence. To assess this question, several hundred thousand ESTs were assembled into transcripts, compared to each other to find homologs, and the evolutionary distances of the homologs represented as a histogram. Evidence of a single evolutionary event was not seen. The same procedure was applied to Xenopus laevis, which has a well-established recent genome duplication, and Danio rerio, which is known not to have had one. In those cases, the evidence for or against a genome duplication appeared exactly as predicted. The conclusion is that if the salmonid genome duplication occurred, some force altered its evolutionary development subsequently to mask the duplication, but also that a genome duplication is not necessary to explain the observed pattern of homolog distances.

A 616-year Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) chronology was developed to examine the history of drought and moisture variability in the Sooke Watershed, near Victoria, British Columbia. Ring-width chronologies were compared to historical precipitation, air temperature and drought variables (Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)) to determine the climate/radial-growth response to moisture stress on the sampled stands. Correlations between the ring-width chronologies and climate variables revealed that May to July precipitation, May-June SPI and July PDSI were significant limiting factors to radial-width growth. A transfer function was established for each of these variables to create a proxy climate reconstruction of drought in the watershed. The summer precipitation model provided the most accurate representation of past moisture variability (R2 = 0.20) and reveals substantial variation in precipitation over the past six centuries. Evidence from the periodicity of the tree-ring record to suggest that some modes of atmospheric circulation are influencing precipitation supply to the watershed.

Image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) is a new type of radiotherapy used to deliver lethal doses of radiation to mobile tumors, while preventing surrounding healthy structures from receiving high doses of radiation. It relies on image guidance to track the tumor and ensure its prescribed position in the radiation beam. The main goal of this work was to determine if a new three-dimensional ultrasound (3D US) image guidance device, called the Restitu System, could safely replace (or be used interchangeably with) an existing method involving x-ray images of implanted fiducial markers (FMs) for prostate IGRT. Using comparison statistics called 95 % limits of agreement (LOA), it was found that the new 3D US system did not produce measurements that agreed sufficiently closely to those made using the FM technique, and therefore, could not safely replace FMs for prostate IGRT. Ultrasound image quality and user variability were determined to have a significant impact on the agreement between the two methods. It was further shown that using the Restitu System offered no significant clinical advantages over a conventional patient re-positioning technique.

This thesis characterizes major factors influencing the accumulation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine (OC) pesticides, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), in grizzly bears. Dietary differences among grizzly bears have significant implications for contaminant concentrations and patterns. While salmon-eating bears were dominated by lipophilic PCBs, OC pesticides, and lower-brominated PBDEs, non-salmon-eating bears were dominated by the more volatile PCBs and OC pesticides and higher-brominated PBDEs (e.g. BDE-209). Overall, the ocean-salmon-bear pathway appeared to preferentially select for those contaminants with an intermediate log Kow ~6.5, with salmon delivering up to 70% of OC pesticides, 85% of PBDEs and 90% of PCBs to grizzly bears. Fat utilization by grizzly bears during hibernation results in significant contaminant concentration increases in residual fat (“concentration effect”). Overall, total PCBs increased by 2.21 times from pre- to post-hibernation, and total PBDEs by 1.58 times. Interestingly, the patterns of the two distinct pre-hibernation grizzly bear feeding ecologies (salmon- and non-salmon-eating) converged during hibernation, suggesting that shared metabolic capacities drive POP patterns during hibernation. Relative to salmon, grizzly bears have extremely low biomagnification factors (BMFs) for PCBs (0.147), compared to other marine mammals. Low BMF values were a result of >90% depuration (loss) of PCBs through contaminant metabolism and excretion. The results suggest that grizzly bears only metabolize PCB congeners with meta- and para- vicinal hydrogen (H) atoms, suggesting that they have active cytochrome (CYP) P450 2B/3A-like metabolic enzymes. However, congeners structurally resistant to metabolic biotransformation, and those with ortho- and meta- vicinal H atoms, were not readily metabolized, but rather were lost through excretion. This was evidenced by a significant relationship between total retention (Rtotal) of those congeners and log Kow, as well as a lack of change in that relationship during hibernation. Vegetation and the terrestrial food web were dominated by PBDEs and volatile OC pesticides and PCBs, while salmon and the marine food web were dominated by lipophilic PCBs and OC pesticides, mirroring patterns in grizzly bears within their respective food web. Following consumption of these various foods by the grizzly bears, fecal material closely resembled food in contaminant pattern, suggesting that many of the contaminants may go unabsorbed. While previous work identified major factors (e.g. age, sex, diet) influencing POP behaviour in wildlife and food webs, this research highlights the need to refine our ideas about those factors in order to better assess chemical health risk in wildlife by considering: 1) individual differences in feeding behaviour; 2) integrated dietary histories (temporal changes); 3) unique biological traits affecting POP fate; 4) modes of POP loss other than metabolism; 5) selection of the most recalcitrant congener for more robust analysis of POP behaviour; 6) use of non-invasive techniques to study diet and POP exposure; and, 7) tissue residue guidelines underestimate health risks. Our results also suggest that PBDEs show POP-type characteristics as defined under the Stockholm Convention, and thus should be regulated.