Labour-intensive agricultural industries in Canada, and most recently in Saskatchewan, have become reliant on a foreign labour source as a means of ensuring survival within the structure of the global agricultural economy as domestic sources have declined or become too expensive. This study considers Anthony Giddens structuration theory in the examination of the hiring practices of producers operating within the apiary sector in Saskatchewan (1984). I argue that the inability of Saskatchewan apiarists to attract and retain an adequately sized and reliable labour force has caused producers to seek temporary foreign workers. In-depth interviews with producers were conducted in order to determine their reasons for shifting their recruiting and retention efforts to include foreign labour. Qualitative analysis of these interview data suggests that Saskatchewan producers have concluded that their only option is to take advantage of the opportunity to source labour from outside of the Canadian market.

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Notions such as transference, movement, transit and mobility have become fundamental to understand the mechanisms that rule the circulation, reception and production of contemporary cultural artifacts. In spite of the growing scholarship on the topic, very little attention has been given to a particular cultural arena: the realm of contemporary entertainment. By contemporary entertainment, I refer to a set of industrial products which are especially directed to urban young audiences: cartoons, comic books, computer games, blockbuster movies, theme park attractions, etc. This thesis argues that the realm of contemporary entertainment is marked by the presence of intense mobility, by movement and acceleration on at least two levels. First, movies (The Matrix, City of God, Run Lola Run, etc.), TV programs (the so-called “MTV aesthetics”), computer games (Doom or games based on blockbusters) and even cartoons for children (Spongebob, Pokémon, etc.) present frantic editing and engage the audiences’ senses through moving images in a vertiginous “bombardment” of signs – a phenomenon I will call kinesthesics. Second, the production and reception of these cultural objects take place in a highly intermedial environment: computer games become feature movies (Tom Raider, Resident Evil), comic books become feature movies (Sin City, Spiderman, etc.) feature movies become theme park attractions (Jurassic Park), theme park attractions become feature movies (Pirates of the Caribbean) and so on. This thesis shows how these two basic mobile characteristics play a determinant role in the complex economic, technologic and aisthesic rationale that drives the contemporary entertainment industry. i The investigation of these basic traits suggests the existence of mobility paradigms that help us better understand not only products like the ones mentioned above, but also disparate cultural artifacts such as the Brazilian aparelhagem – a traveling technological paraphernalia that brings musical entertainment to poor audiences in the Brazilian Amazon Region. Aparelhagens present an intricate blending of physical displacement, media mobility, visual spectacle and musical frenzy. This successful combination propels a popular and powerful entertainment industry in Northern Brazil known as tecnobrega. By analyzing the phenomenon and comparing it to global entertainment products, the thesis discloses aisthesic patterns that cross social, economic and cultural boundaries.

Limited hip mobility is known to affect the lumbar spine. Much of the previous research has utilized a participant population whose hip mobility is compromised due to arthritic or neurological dysfunctions. Such aetiologies may confound the outcomes, as their effects may not be limited to the hip. The purpose of this thesis was to recruit a healthy young adult population with limited hip mobility to further investigate its effect on the lumbar spine, as well as the role of exercise intervention. Several cascading studies were conducted that were unified around a central theme of links between hip and spine function: Study # 1 investigated the normal distribution of passive hip extension and rotation in a group of 77 males (age 19-30). Data was collected using an infra-red motion capture system and compared to goniometric measurements. The resulting angles represent the 5th – 95th percentiles, including the averages and standard deviations. Study # 2 compared movement patterns between groups of males with limited and excessive hip mobility. Participants were required to perform simple functional activities (lunging, twisting, walking, etc) as well as use the elliptical trainer. Resulting hip and spine angles demonstrated that the men with limited hip mobility stood with a more anteriorly tilted pelvis, and assumed a posture with more lumbar and hip flexion on the elliptical trainer, compared to those with greater mobility. This, in turn, resulted in a greater lumbar compression load due to increased back muscle activity. Study #3 involved recruitment of 24 young adult males with limited hip mobility. Their movement patterns were assessed (as in study #2), then they were assigned to one of four intervention groups: hip stretching, spine stabilizing, hip stretching combined with spine stabilization, and control. Participants in the 3 exercise groups attended supervised exercise sessions once/week for 6 weeks, but were expected to exercise a minimum of 4 times/week on their own. At the end of the 6 weeks, intake parameters were re-assessed, and movement pattern assessment repeated. Despite significant increases in available hip flexibility and/or large increases in trunk muscle endurance and trunk motor control, there were few indications that participants were any more adept at decreasing lumbar motion, or utilizing their newfound hip flexibility during functional activities. Study #4 compared those in the 10th and 90th percentiles of available hip rotation, using a frictionless apparatus to investigate passive stiffness properties of the hip. Participants adopted a posture of upright standing, with one leg supported on a turntable apparatus, and upper body and pelvis secured. A an applied rotational moment resulted in passive hip internal and external rotation. Outcomes demonstrate that those with limited hip mobility stand with the leg more externally rotated and require a larger moment to initiate motion. Passive stiffness curves indicate greater stiffness properties in those with limited hip mobility, and more resistance to an external rotation moment than internal rotation. Study #5 investigated passive hip stiffness in the sagittal plane, comparing those with limited and excessive hip extension. Using a frictionless jig, with the participants lying on their left side, the left hip was pulled into extension with knee position varying. Those with limited hip mobility demonstrated increased passive stiffness compared to the more mobile group, and stiffness was greater when the knee was in extension. The group with limited mobility also showed a trend of increased back extension compared to the more mobile group, when the hip and lumbar spine were both free to react to the applied extension moment. Study #6 summarizes the spine/hip kinematics and muscle activation levels produced when using the elliptical trainer, as well as lumbar compressive and shear forces. It differs significantly from walking in that it produces more lumbar motion in flexion/extension and lumbar twist, but less lateral bend. Participants also tended to adopt a greater mean lumbar flexion angle on the elliptical, which in turn resulted in greater muscle activity in the back extensors. Varying hand position, velocity and stride length were all found to significantly affect the amount of lumbar motion. Highly phasic muscle activity is seen, with the gluteal muscles and internal obliques demonstrating the greatest activation levels.

The primary objective of the study was to address two aspects of construct validity (i.e., face and criterion validity) of the Environmental Analysis of Mobility Questionnaire (EAMQ). The EAMQ is a self-report questionnaire, which consists of items that inquire about older adults tendencies to both encounter and avoid community mobility challenges that address several dimensions of community mobility. The EAMQ was compared to selected tasks from the Walking InCHIANTI Toolkit (WIT) and with a community mobility self-efficacy questionnaire (SE). Sixty independently living, community dwelling older adults (mean ± SD; age = 74 ± 5 years) volunteered to participate. Participation included a single visit by the researcher to the home of the participant. During the visit, demographic, health information, EAMQ, SE, and the modified WIT were completed. Regarding the first hypotheses, four of the six correlations between walking speed on the modified WIT and the EAMQ-encounter score were significant (range of significant correlations was 0.169 to 0.299; p < 0.05). By contrast, all of the correlations between walking speed on the modified WIT and EAMQ-avoidance score were significant (range of significant correlations was -0.330 to -0.410; p < 0.05. Regarding the second hypotheses, a significant positive correlation was found between SE and EAMQ-encounter (r = 0.345; p< 0.01) while a significant negative correlation was found between SE and EAMQ-avoidance (r = -0.531; p < 0.01). Furthermore, SE was significantly correlated with modified WIT performances (range of significant correlations was 0.332 to 0.578; p < 0.01). The secondary and exploratory purpose of this validation study was to determine if the EAMQ and SE both individually and additively contributed to the prediction of CWT performances. Results indicated that the EAMQ, significantly predicted walking speed on all modified WIT tasks; however, the avoidance score was the only significant predictor in the model. When SE was added to the prediction model it became the dominant and significant predictor of walking speed on most modified WIT tasks. As walking task complexity increased SE accounted for more of the variability in walking speed than the EAMQ. In conclusion, the results demonstrate partial support for the validity of the EAMQ. The EAMQ-avoidance score appears to be a valid correlate of the modified WIT and could be used as one predictor of community mobility. Recommendations are made for improvements to the EAMQ and for further investigation of its validity.

Labour-intensive agricultural industries in Canada, and most recently in Saskatchewan, have become reliant on a foreign labour source as a means of ensuring survival within the structure of the global agricultural economy as domestic sources have declined or become too expensive. This study considers Anthony Giddens structuration theory in the examination of the hiring practices of producers operating within the apiary sector in Saskatchewan (1984). I argue that the inability of Saskatchewan apiarists to attract and retain an adequately sized and reliable labour force has caused producers to seek temporary foreign workers. In-depth interviews with producers were conducted in order to determine their reasons for shifting their recruiting and retention efforts to include foreign labour. Qualitative analysis of these interview data suggests that Saskatchewan producers have concluded that their only option is to take advantage of the opportunity to source labour from outside of the Canadian market.

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Wireless sensor network consists of a large number of sensors, which are capable of sensing, communication and data processing. In wireless sensor network, predictable or unpredictable death of sensor nodes may cause coverage and connectivity problems of the original network. In order to compensate the loss of coverage and connectivity, we propose a region-based movement scheme that divides the neighboring sensors of the dead sensor into a number of regions. The neighboring sensors are moved to repair the regions respectively by using the least mobility distance, and their existing coverage and connectivity are not jeopardized. Our work has better performance of maintaining coverage and connectivity of the network. By the results, our work can decrease the average mobility distance and coverage deterioration substantially.

Among nitide sremiconductor, InN has the highest electron drift velocity and the smallest effective mass. InN has also been proven to be a narrow band gap semiconductor with a band gap energy of about 0.6-0.7 eV at room temperature. During the past few years, InN has attracted extensive attention due to is potential applications in semiconductor devices such as light-emitting diodes, lasers, and high efficiency solar cells. With the improvement of growth techniques in recently years, high quality InN films grown by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy (PAMBE) are now readily available. But there is no explicit knowledge for the physical properties of InN. In our experiment, we grow a serious of Si-doped InN with carrier concentration from 1.15 ¡Ñ 1018 cm-3 to 1.90¡Ñ1019 cm-3 by PAMBE . In this thesis we will introduce the instrument and describe the characteristics of Si-doped InN by photoluminescence, high-resolution x-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy and cathodoluminescence

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: Kamala Visweswaran. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.