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Recent research indicates the need for a functional balance assessment in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs. One assessment technique that may be appropriate is the Community Balance and Mobility Scale (CBMS). The purpose of this study was to investigate psychometric properties of the CBMS when testing patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Thirty-one participants from community CR programs were recruited to perform the CBMS and measures of computerized dynamic posturography. Convergent validities between the measures were investigated using correlation coefficients, and floor and ceiling effects of the CBMS were analysed. The results indicated that the CBMS was moderately correlated with all computerized posturography variables, with no floor or ceiling effects present. Analysis of posturography results indicated that CR patients have decreased movement characteristics in the anterior and posterior directions. These findings indicate that the CBMS is a suitable tool to assess and monitor balance in a CR population.

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The present study validates the Treadmill Rehabilitation Platform (TRP) protocol that assessed standing balance performance; spatial and temporal gait variability; stability measures and visual spatial cognitive task performances. Healthy individuals (mean age = 61.4± 4.4 years; n = 30) performed tasks from the TRP protocol while standing and while walking on treadmill. Moderate to High test retest reliability was observed for the TRP tool measures with a few exceptions. Standing balance decreased significantly as visual task load increased. Spatial and temporal gait variability increased whereas walking stability decreased significantly as visual task load increased. Visual task performance decreased significantly as physical load increased. In conclusion, the TRP protocol allows us to assess the ability to prioritize the division of attention when visual spatial cognitive tasks are performed while standing and during walking. Also, it allows reliable assessment of the effects of compromised attention during the tasks performances.

This thesis reports on a secondary analysis of individual and focus group interviews from the Aboriginal Two-Spirit and LGBTQ Migration, Mobility and Health research project (Ristock, Zoccole, and Passante, 2010; Ristock, Zoccole, & Potskin, 2011). This was a community-based qualitative research project following Indigenous and feminist methods, involving two community Advisory Committees, and adopting research principles of Ownership Control Access and Possession (OCAP) (First Nations Centre, 2007). This analysis reviews data from 50 participants in Winnipeg and Vancouver and answers: How do Aboriginal Two-Spirit and LGBTQ people describe home, community and belonging in the context of migration, multiple identities, and in a positive framework focusing on wellbeing, strengths and resilience? Findings demonstrate how participants experience marginalization in both Aboriginal and gay communities. Their words illustrate factors such as safety required to facilitate positive identities, community building, belonging, and sense of home. For participants in this study home is a place where they can bring multiple identities, a geographical place, a physical or metaphorical space (with desired tone, feeling), and a quality of relationships. Community is about places, relationships, participation, and shared interests. Belonging is relational and interactive, feeling safe, accepted, and welcome to be yourself. Detractors interfere with positive meaning making and are identified in examples of contemporary effects of historical trauma. Also included are participant recommendations for community building, descriptions of holistic wellbeing, and examples of many ways urban Aboriginal Two-Spirit and LGBTQ people are creating communities of Two-Spirit vitality and resurgence (Simpson, 2011).

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The practicum project addresses the ongoing relationship between interior space and the urban environment. Despite a common perception of the interior and the exterior as being distinct and separate, a study of these spaces reflects a similar spatial continuum to the one that exists between public and private space. These realms are linked to each other spatially and socially. Through the development of an active transportation hub in Winnipeg, the project seeks to explore the potential of interior design to influence the wider urban environment. Placemaking and scale linking will be used to create places of meaning and identity in a mobile environment. The hub will create a place for sustainable transportation, community connection and improved quality of life for the people of Winnipeg. In this way, interiors can have a direct impact on the dynamics of the city.

Community participation during the cold winter months is difficult for wheeled mobility device (WMD) users. However, limited attention has been given to understanding this problem, and collaboratively identifying solutions with stakeholders. This qualitative study explored the issues faced by key stakeholders (WMD users and Public Works Department employees) regarding use and provision of accessible sidewalks in winter and identified solutions. Eleven participants informed the study through a combination of go-along interviews, key informant interviews, photographs, and meteorological data. Four themes were identified: the context of winter season, winter and wheels interact, winter versus the city, and a framework for winter access and success. Solutions included creating awareness, taking action, and assuming accountability through collaborative efforts and increased information sharing. Based on the perspectives of informed stakeholders this study contributes to the development of focused interventions for overcoming winter sidewalk barriers and thus, enabling winter community participation of WMD users.

This research employed two methodological approaches to testing an evolutionary hypothesis of city growth and residential status redistribution. The expectation was that among small metropolitan areas, residential status patterns should be evolving toward the patterns which have been observed among older, larger cities.In the first stage of analysis, evidence suggested that residential status patterns have evolved in a predictable direction for sixteen of twenty cities between 19110 and 1970. A graphic link between "colonial" and Burgess patterns of status distribution was also found.Using tract level analysis, the results of the second research stage suggested that a positive relationship between status and distance of a tract from the central business district exists within the center city area but that a negative relationship is predominant in the suburban ring area. These findings question the basic assumptions from which the evolutionary hypothesis has beengenerated.

Wireless sensor networks are used to collect sensor data in different applications such as environmental monitoring, smart building control, and health care applications. Wireless sensor nodes used are typically small, low-cost, and battery powered. The nodes are often hard to access after deployment, for example when they are in remote  locations. Another property of wireless sensor networks is that their operation is dependent on the environment they operate in, both due to the specific sensor readings but also due to the effects on communication by factors such as fading and radio interference. This makes it important to evaluate a wireless sensor network in its intendent target environment before final deployment. To enable experiments with wireless sensor networks in their target environment, we have designed and implemented a testbed called Sensei-UU. It is designed to allow WSN experiments to be repeated in different locations, thus exposing effects caused by the environment. To allow this, the testbed is designed to be easily moved between experimental sites. One type of WSN applications Sensei-UU is aimed to evaluate is protocols where nodes are mobile. Mobile testbed nodes are low-cost robots which follow a tape track on the floor. The localization accuracy of the robot approach is evaluated and is accurate enough to expose a protocol to fading phenoma in a repeatable manner. Sensei-UU has helped us develop a lightweight interference classification approach, SoNIC, which runs on standard motes. The approach only use information from a standard cc2420 chipset available when packets are received. We believe that the classification accuracy is good enough to motivate specific transmission techniques avoiding interference. / WISENET