Global climate change has become the imminent issue of our time. Recent literature has stressed the pressing need for adaptation planning, particularly for communities that are most vulnerable to new climatic variations, such as resource dependent and coastal communities. Yet, such cries for adaptation have often glossed over the need for prior examination into the underlying cultural mindsets of such communities. In response, this thesis has sought to examine the various factors that are influencing local understandings of global climate change by leaders in two British Columbia coastal communities, Port Alberni and the Tseshaht First Nation. Guided by a social (or ecological) constructionist lens and a phenomenological methodological approach, a series of in-depth interviews were conducted with the leadership, both formal and informal, of the two aforementioned B.C. communities during the summer of 2006. Although each community yielded distinct findings, the interviews captured richly nuanced descriptions of local environmental changes, which in turn played a sizeable role in shaping how the leaders conceptualized climate change. A plethora of place-specific historical, experiential and values-based factors interacted and moulded the many contextual culturalmodels (from tsunamis, to recycling, to colonial pasts to reverence for nature), which were imbedded within leaders' discussions of climate change. Following this core analysis, I explored the community capacity to manage and adapt to future changes by examining local strengths and challenges. The concluding chapter provided a reflection of the results and pointed to new directions.

When wearing prism goggles that displace vision laterally, the initial pointing errors are rapidly corrected. When the goggles are removed after a sufficient period of prism adaptation (PA), there is an aftereffect in spatial responding in the opposite direction of the original displacement. In this study 24 participants were tested using a computerized PA procedure to explore the effects of displacement direction (left/right), type of feedback during adaptation (hand/indirect), and type of target (fixed/non-fixed) on pointing error during 180 PA trials and the time-course of the aftereffect when measured in two ways: Subjective Straight Ahead (SSA) pointing (proprioceptive guidance towards perceived straight-ahead) and Visual Open Loop (VOL) pointing (visual and proprioceptive performance when pointing toward a straight-ahead target). During the initial stage of adaptation, all groups adjusted pointing in the opposite direction of prismatic displacement. Pointing error was similar for left and right goggle groups, but was more accurate and faster to stabilize with hand than indirect feedback. After pointing stabilized, the left-goggle/hand feedback group reached beyond targets (‘over-corrected’ pointing error), while other conditions failed to fully adjust pointing and remained ‘under-corrected’. In all groups, SSA aftereffects were weak or absent, while VOL aftereffects endured for at least 40-minutes. VOL aftereffects were larger following hand-feedback at all post-PA latencies, and for left-goggle groups at early post-PA latencies. Target-type affected performance during the stabilized-phase of adaptation, but did not influence SSA or VOL aftereffects. These results suggest that computerized PA had induced changes in vision but not proprioception, and provide novel evidence that the technology induced reliable aftereffects following both hand and indirect feedback PA. The results, when considered together with the study’s strengths and weaknesses, provide insight into how future studies might assess computerized-PA can be used to explore more complex attention and space representation process in healthy-normal and patients suffering from unilateral neglect.

Direct study of the film adaptations of the works of William Faulkner’s is relatively rare, and many of the few examples are still based entirely on the notion of textual fidelity as opposed to the more modern approach of intertextuality. With the aim of providing such an approach, this project purposes that adaptations of Faulkner novels can actually be seen as reflections of his developing popular persona at certain times in his career, and that the ways in which this persona is perceived by the filmmakers plays a large role in each film’s adaptive and thematic expression. This adaptive process occurs under the heavy influence of both popular genre narratives and a variety of surrounding social and cultural contexts, all of which must be investigated if one is to fully explore the intertextual relationship between film and source.

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Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The succession process of interest in this study, the succession of fens and bogs, is driven to a large extent by the lowering of the water-table level as Sphagnum moss and vascular plants invade the habitat. I used a plasticity experiment to compare the phenotypic responses of two groups of sedges (Carex; Cyperaceae) to a water-table gradient: a group of pioneer species, C. aquatilis, C. oligosperma and C. rostrata, that also persist throughout the succession sequence and a group of late-invading species, C. michauxiana, C. paupercula and C. vaginata. The genotypes in the study exhibited largely uniform, adaptive responses on seven functional response variables, but were stable for total biomass, an estimator of fitness. The percentage of significant environment main effects per species and the magnitudes of genotypic coefficients of variation suggested greater plasticity in the late-invading species while reaction norms indicated no difference in pattern of plasticity between the groups. A second experiment made an intra-specific comparison of morphological response between early and late successional populations of both C. aquatilis and C. rostrata to a continuous water-table gradient. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The neurohormonal mechanisms underlying the regulation of extracellular osmolality are of critical physiological importance. These mechanisms act to maintain the osmolality of human plasma close to a “set-point” of about 290 milliosmoles per litre. The magnocellular neurosecretory cells (MNCs) of the supraoptic nucleus (SON), synthesize and secrete the neurohypophysial hormones vasopressin (VP) and oxytocin (OT). The primary hormonal regulator of osmolality is VP, which is released by the MNCs as a function of plasma osmolality and acts by controlling water reabsorption at the kidneys. MNCs decrease their volume and thus plasma membrane tension in response to acute increases in external osmolality and lack the compensatory mechanisms that limit volume changes in most cell types. This enables them to transduce changes in osmolality into changes in excitability via a mechanosensitive cation channel. It has been shown in vivo that sustained increases in plasma osmolality, however, cause marked hypertrophy of the MNCs that is part of a structural and functional adaptation that is thought to enable the MNCs to secrete large quantities of VP for prolonged periods. The mechanism of this important structural and functional adaptation of MNCs is difficult to address in an in vivo preparation and so an in vitro model of acutely isolated MNCs was used to pharmacologically assess the hypertrophy. It was observed that MNCs exposed to sustained hypertonic solutions, underwent an immediate shrinkage followed by a hypertrophy over 90 minutes and quickly recovered when reintroduced to isotonic conditions. This effect was found to depend on the size of the increase in osmolality, as smaller increases in osmolality resulted in smaller shrinkage and hypertrophy of the MNCs. Hypertrophy was shown to be independent of cell volume regulatory processes as inhibitors of the Na+-K+-Cl- cotransporter did not affect hypertrophy. Hypertrophy was also shown to be dependent on activation of phospholipase C (PLC) and protein kinase C (PKC), as adding inhibitors of these enzymes to the hypertonic solution prevented hypertrophy. Hypertrophy could occur in isotonic conditions by inducing cell depolarization, increasing intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) and by activating PKC, thus showing each of these processes are involved in hypertrophy. Recovery from hypertrophy depends upon dynamin-mediated endocytosis as blocking dynamin function prevented recovery. In addition, exposing the MNCs to hypotonic solution resulted in an immediate enlargement followed by a sustained decrease in cell size. Finally, exposing acutely isolated MNCs to hypertonic solution for two hours resulted in a 37% increase in the immunolabeling of the L-type Ca2+ channel CaV1.2 subunit. This increase in CaV1.2 immunolabeling does not depend on action potential firing as adding tetrodotoxin (TTX) to the hypertonic solution failed to prevent the increase. This project will help to elucidate the mechanisms underlying this interesting example of neuroendocrine adaptation and will help us to understand the regulation of body fluid balance during chronic challenges as seen in the elderly and chronically ill.

Shakespeare’s Richard III is the most often performed history play within the western dramatic canon, yet at the end of the seventeenth century it was considered virtually unplayable. The extensive textual alteration undertaken by comedian Colley Cibber in 1700 revived interest in the rarely performed play, and actor David Garrick’s adoption of Cibber’s text in 1744 ensured the work’s popular survival. Regular performance and textual revision throughout the eighteenth century positioned Cibber’s adaptation as one of the most well-known works on the London stages, and by the time Henry Irving permanently restored Shakespeare’s text to the popular repertoire in 1877, Cibber’s adaptation had served as a conduit to restoring Richard III from its “virtually unplayable” position to its lost Elizabethan fame. The adaptive development of Richard III from unplayable to indispensable can be tracked dramaturgically, from Shakespeare’s Quarto (1597) and Folio (1623) to Cibber’s version, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century performative adaptations, and twentieth century film realisations. Through parallel-text analysis of the prompt-scripts of some of the most notorious, iconic, and effective adaptations of the play, this study examines in a practical sense the dramaturgical drive present throughout the play’s varied life-span: often changing, but nevertheless a constant product. The negative stigma attached to adaptation – characterised in Cibber’s words as “tampering” – is examined throughout the performative history of Richard III. Chapter one considers theoretical perspectives on adaptation studies, and adopts Gérard Genette’s evocative “transtextuality” discourse to quantify conclusions to emerge from parallel comparison of texts. Chapter two analyses Cibber’s process of “re-visioning” Shakespeare’s play; Chapter three examines the impact of performative adaptation on six different stage editions of Richard III. Chapter four addresses the transitional process of developing a stage-bound text on film through the screenplay format, and Chapter five demonstrates the use of cinematic visualisation on the text. Finally, Chapter six tracks the impact of adaptation on the survival and perpetuation of texts over successive generations and throughout varied cultures and contexts. Through analysis of fourteen different performance editions, prompt-books, film texts, and unpublished manuscripts, this dissertation considers the validity of “tampering” on the adaptive process.

Typewritten copy / 1 v. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, 1955