Using a multivariate correlational design, this study was designed to determine the degree to which selected risk and protective factors were related to resilience in an at-risk student population. A total of 12 individual, family and external risk and protective factors were identified and data were collected from 142 6th through 11th grade students in an alternative education program for individuals who had committed severe behavioral infractions. A series of multiple regression analyses were conducted using three outcome variables: a rating of students' resilient behavior, number of behavior referrals in the students' records, and standardized reading achievement scores. Five percent of the sample then was selected for semi-structured interviews to glean additional information about the relationships between the identified variables and student resilience.The combination of individual, family and external risk variables explained a significant amount of the variance in student behavior referrals and reading achievement, but not in overall resilient status. With regard to behavior referrals, the largest contributors to the model were age, severity of sending offense and neighborhood crime. Reading achievement was related to special education status, as predicted, and negatively related to community violence. Parental structure was positively correlated with resilient status but the percentage of variance explained by the overall model was not significant.The combination of selected protective factors explained a significant amount of variance when resilient status and reading achievement were the measured outcomes, but not for the model addressing behavior referrals. Being a male and having strong cohesion as a family unit were the variables most highly related to resilient status, while special education eligibility and perceptions of school belongingness accounted for the largest variance in reading scores. School belongingness was negatively relate d to reading achievement in this sample.An examination of qualitative data revealed that teacher characteristics were important to students' motivation to succeed, and information collected reiterated the importance of family structure and cohesion in students' resilient status. Other emerging themes were apparent when mentoring and friendship were discussed, as well as when students' self-perceived strengths, weaknesses and future aspirations were identified.

The majority of people in North America have lost not only the knowledge of how to successfully sustain themselves from the land but, even more troubling, the basic knowledge of where the food comes from, what real food is, or even what to do with it. It is not only basic knowledge of food that is being lost in the consumer culture; many of the private and public spaces that were central to the social fabric of the city, street, and family are changing and losing their significance. The mass marketing of the consumer lifestyle has led to the disappearance of home gardens, local restaurants, neighbourhood coffee shops, and farmers’ markets. It has altered the fine grain of our city, streets, and homes, thereby reducing the social interactions that once created lively streets in the past. This thesis examines both the historical and current relationship and influence of food in cities, streets and homes in relation to the growing issues of access to fresh whole food and the dispersed city form. In addition, it will investigate how food orientated developments such as Community Food Centres can act as a catalyst for urban revitalization in failing urban cores and provide a resiliency to the economies of the city. The analysis of the influence of food, challenges that midsized cites are facing, and a series of precedents will provide a set guidelines for architects and planners developing urban projects. Three main themes are explored as a means to revitalization of urban neighbourhood through food: reuse of under used or abandoned land, our cultural connection to food, and the activities and culture that the two create together. These themes will explore the use and cultural significance of kitchens, markets, and restaurants and public space as architectural spaces that create community as a means to better understand what mechanisms of these aspects are the keys to the building of vibrant communities. This concept will be explored through the design of a community food centre in St. Patrick’s Ward in Guelph, Ontario.

Unbound granular materials (UGMs) used in the base and sub-base layers of flexible pavements play a significant role in the overall performance of the structure. Proper understanding and characterization of the deformation behaviour of UGMs in pavement structures are, therefore, vital for the design and maintenance of flexible pavements. In this study, the resilient deformation (RD) and the permanent deformation (PD) behaviour of UGMs were investigated for the better understanding and improved modelling of these deformation characteristics. The study is based on a series of repeated-load triaxial (RLT) tests carried out on several UGMs commonly used in pavement structures. Here, the influences of stress level and moisture content - two of the most significant factors affecting the deformation behaviour of UGMs - were analysed. The effects of the grain size distribution and the degree of compaction were also considered. The study on the RD behaviour indicated that the resilient stiffness (MR)of UGMs increases with the increased bulk stress level, which can be satisfactorily described by the k-θ model. Moisture was found to negatively impact the MR as long as the deformation was mostly resilient with a negligible amount of accumulated PD. Analysis of the influence of moisture on the parameters k1 and k2 of the k-θ model showed that k1 decreases with increased moisture and k2 is relatively insensitive to moisture. Based on these observations, a simple model was developed for the impact of moisture on MR. The performance of this model was comparable to an existing moisture dependent MR model. In contrast, it was further observed that at the later stages of the RLT tests, after a relatively large number of load applications, the MR increased with increased moisture up to the optimum moisture content. This occurred when the RD was accompanied by a significant amount of PD. Further investigation suggested that moisture aided the post-compaction (PC) and possible particle rearrangement that resulted in the increased PD and increased MR. In this case k1 decreased, whereas k2 increased, with increased moisture. The existing MR-moisture model did not work for this behaviour. This suggests that the effect of PC on MRshould be considered in modelling. However, although not explored in this study, it may be possible to simulate this effect of increase in MR with increased moisture due to PC using the proposed model if k2 is expressed as a function of moisture. The PD characteristics of UGMs were investigated based on the multistage (MS) RLT test. In contrast with the single stage (SS) RLT test, the MS RLT test accounts for the effect of stress history and enables a comprehensive study of the material behaviour under cyclic stresses of various magnitudes. Since the existing PD models cannot be directly applied for the MS loading procedure, a general formulation based on the time hardening concept was derived that can be used to extend the models for the MS loading conditions. Based on this formulation, some of the current models were calibrated and their performance in predicting the PD behaviour in MS RLT tests was compared. The investigation regarding the impact of moisture on PD showed that moisture significantly increases the accumulation of PD. Generally, materials with finer grading showed more sensitivity to moisture with regards to both PD and RD. To characterize the impact of moisture, moisture sensitivity of different grain size distributions and the impact of the degree of compaction on PD with reduced effort, a simple model was proposed. Unlike some of the well-performing existing models, this model can be calibrated using a single MS RLT test without requiring any separate static failure triaxial tests. This model was validated using the MS RLT test data with satisfactory results. The sensitivity of the parameters of this model was studied with respect to moisture content, degree of compaction and grain size distribution. Some reasonable trends for the sensitivity of the parameters to these influential factors were obtained, which suggests that these may be further developed to incorporate into the model. / <p>QC 20150325</p>

Our study aims to investigate whether resilient children share common factors that could explain them not following the expected course of development for said group. The study also sets out to explore which strategies resilient children implement in order to cope with their situation. The study is based on the following questions: How do resilient children describe their experiences from growing up with parents with substance abuse problems? What risk and protective factors do they mention in their biographies? We use the system theory and Goffman's dramaturgic perspective as analytical tools.  The system theory could help us see the family as a system, while Goffman's theory might help us understand how resilient children find different strategies, and why they implement these strategies, to hide their family problems. The results show that the most important factors with a positive effect on resilient children were: to have somebody else important in their lives, to have goals in life, to have a safe haven, to think independently and to develop a high level of independence early in life.

Traditionally, the resilient modulus values obtained from repeated unconfined or triaxial compression tests are used as the elastic modulus of granular layers in structural analysis of flexible pavements. Sometimes the resilient modulus of granular materials are estimated from known California bearing ratios (CBR) or stabilometer resistance (R) values by simple regression equations. On the other hand, it is well known that stress-strain relation for unbound granular materials is nonlinear and the resilient modulus increases with the increase in stress intensity. There exist several models for stress dependent nonlinear behavior of unbound granular materials. These models are incorporated into elastic layered analysis by applying a method of successive approximations in order to get more realistic pavement responses. Kenlayer is a popular computer program incorporating nonlinear behavior of granular materials in elastic layered system. In this computer program, the resilient modulus of granular materials are varied in vertical direction only, without considering variations in radial direction. In this study, simplest model namely K-Q model for stress dependency of granular layer is applied in structural analysis of flexible pavements. This model is adopted for use in finite element analysis carried by SAP90 software. Analyses are performed over 24 different three-layered pavement structures by changing asphaltic concrete modulus values, granular base thicknesses, base materials and subgrade modulus values. Critical pavement responses namely tensile strains at the bottom of asphaltic surface layers and compressive strains on top of subgrade are obtained for each pavement by linear layered elastic, nonlinear layered elastic and nonlinear finite element solutions. The pavement lives are calculated by using selected performance equations. The results of layered systems and finite element solutions are compared. It is observed that, results obtained from finite element model and linear elastic solutions differ considerably.

The psychological benefits of self-compassion, a construct associated with adaptively dealing with emotional suffering from life's problems appear to overlap with those of trait resiliency in terms of theoretical underpinnings and outcome research. This study investigated the relationship between self-compassion, personality, and gender in order to shed light on the construct's relevance to an existing framework of resiliency personality research. One hundred and twenty-three college students completed the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Self-compassion Scale (SCS). A cluster-analysis of the BFI scores yielded three cluster prototypes consistent with overcontrolled, undercontrolled, and resilient personality prototypes identified in previous studies of children and adult community samples. Analyses revealed resilient individuals reported significantly higher overall Self-compassion (M = 3.08, SD = .25) compared to both overcontrolled (M = 2.85, SD = .20, t = -4.32, p <= .00) and undercontrolled types (M = 2.90, SD = .25, t = 3.53, p <= .00). Interestingly, there were no significant differences between overcontrolled and undercontrolled types or between men and women, on overall Self-compassion. A two by three MANOVA of gender and personality prototype on the SCS revealed a significant interaction on overall Self-compassion score (F = 3.92, p <= .02) and the Common Humanity subscale (F = 3.81, p <= .03). Post hoc analyses were conducted to examine the nature of the gender and personality interactions. The theoretical issues raised by these results are discussed and recommendations are made for utilizing self-compassion in treatment and future research.

The Internet has scaled massively over the past 15 years to extend to billions of users. These users increasingly require extensive applications and capabilities from the Internet, such as Quality of Service (QoS) optimized paths between end hosts. When default Internet paths may not meet their requirements adequately, there is a need to facilitate the discovery of such QoS optimized paths. Fortunately, even though the route offered by the Internet may not work (to the required level of performance), often there exist alternate routes that do work. When the direct Internet path between two Internet hosts for instance is sub-optimal (according to specific user defined criterion), there is a possibility that the direct paths of both to a third host may not be suffering from the same problem owing to path disjointness. Overlay Networks facilitate the discovery of such composite alternate paths through third party hosts. To discover such alternate paths, overlay hosts regularly monitor both Internet path quality and choose better alternate paths via other hosts. Such measurements are costly and pose scalability problems for large overlay networks. This thesis asserts and shows that these overheads could be lowered substantially if the network layer path information between overlay hosts could be obtained, which facilitates selection of disjoint paths. This thesis further demonstrates that obtaining such network layer path information is very challenging. As opposed to the path monitoring which only requires cooperation of overlay hosts, disjoint path selection depends on the accuracy of information about the underlay, which is out of the domain of control of the overlay and so may contain inaccuracies. This thesis investigates how such information could be gleaned at different granularities for optimal tradeoffs between spatial and/or temporal methods for selection of alternate paths. The main contributions of this thesis are: (i) investigation of scalable techniques to facilitate alternate path computation using network layer path information; (ii) a review of the realistic performance gains achievable using such alternate paths; and (iii) investigation of techniques for revealing the presence of incorrect network layer path information, proposal of new techniques for its removal.

The Internet has scaled massively over the past 15 years to extend to billions of users. These users increasingly require extensive applications and capabilities from the Internet, such as Quality of Service (QoS) optimized paths between end hosts. When default Internet paths may not meet their requirements adequately, there is a need to facilitate the discovery of such QoS optimized paths. Fortunately, even though the route offered by the Internet may not work (to the required level of performance), often there exist alternate routes that do work. When the direct Internet path between two Internet hosts for instance is sub-optimal (according to specific user defined criterion), there is a possibility that the direct paths of both to a third host may not be suffering from the same problem owing to path disjointness. Overlay Networks facilitate the discovery of such composite alternate paths through third party hosts. To discover such alternate paths, overlay hosts regularly monitor both Internet path quality and choose better alternate paths via other hosts. Such measurements are costly and pose scalability problems for large overlay networks. This thesis asserts and shows that these overheads could be lowered substantially if the network layer path information between overlay hosts could be obtained, which facilitates selection of disjoint paths. This thesis further demonstrates that obtaining such network layer path information is very challenging. As opposed to the path monitoring which only requires cooperation of overlay hosts, disjoint path selection depends on the accuracy of information about the underlay, which is out of the domain of control of the overlay and so may contain inaccuracies. This thesis investigates how such information could be gleaned at different granularities for optimal tradeoffs between spatial and/or temporal methods for selection of alternate paths. The main contributions of this thesis are: (i) investigation of scalable techniques to facilitate alternate path computation using network layer path information; (ii) a review of the realistic performance gains achievable using such alternate paths; and (iii) investigation of techniques for revealing the presence of incorrect network layer path information, proposal of new techniques for its removal.

This thesis develops a methodology for designing resilient system-of-systems (SoS) networks. This methodology includes a capability-based resilience assessment framework, used to quantify SoS resilience. A complex networks approach is used to generate potential SoS network designs, focusing on scale-free and random network topologies, degree-based and random rewiring adaptation, and targeted and random node removal threats. Statistical design methods, specifically response surface methodology, are used to evaluate SoS networks and provide an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of potential designs. Linear regression is used to model a continuous representation of the network design space, and determine optimally resilient networks for particular threat types. The methodology is applied to an information exchange (IE) network model (i.e., a message passing network model) and military command and control (C2) model. Results show that optimally resilient IE network topologies are random for networks with adaptation, regardless of the threat type. However, the optimally resilient adaptation method sharply transitions from being fully random to fully degree-based as threat randomness increases. These findings suggest that intermediately defined networks should not be considered when designing for resilience. Cost-benefit analysis of C2 networks suggests that resilient C2 networks are more cost-effective than robust ones, as long as the cost of rewiring network links is less than three-fourths the cost of creating new links. This result identifies a threshold for which a resilient network design approach is more cost-effective than a robust one.This thesis develops a methodology for designing resilient system-of-systems (SoS) networks. This methodology includes a capability-based resilience assessment framework, used to quantify SoS resilience. A complex networks approach is used to generate potential SoS network designs, focusing on scale-free and random network topologies, degree-based and random rewiring adaptation, and targeted and random node removal threats. Statistical design methods, specifically response surface methodology, are used to evaluate SoS networks and provide an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of potential designs. Linear regression is used to model a continuous representation of the network design space, and determine optimally resilient networks for particular threat types. The methodology is applied to an information exchange (IE) network model (i.e., a message passing network model) and military command and control (C2) model. Results show that optimally resilient IE network topologies are random for networks with adaptation, regardless of the threat type. However, the optimally resilient adaptation method sharply transitions from being fully random to fully degree-based as threat randomness increases. These findings suggest that intermediately defined networks should not be considered when designing for resilience. Cost-benefit analysis of C2 networks suggests that resilient C2 networks are more cost-effective than robust ones, as long as the cost of rewiring network links is less than three-fourths the cost of creating new links. This result identifies a threshold for which a resilient network design approach is more cost-effective than a robust one.

Climate change will impact food systems around the world by creating new ecological threats to crops and challenging the massive energy inputs required by modern industrial agriculture. The severity of these threats suggests that British Columbia's food system is unprepared for the adverse effects of climate change. The province currently produces 48% of its food requirements, much of which is allocated to export markets, and expansion of this system will be difficult as only 1% of provincial land is considered “prime” farmland. One way to prepare a food system for climate threats is to enhance the system’s resilience. A resilient system can quickly adapt to new external problems while maintaining its structure and productivity. A resilient food system is built on three important attributes: internal strength, diversity and flexibility. While there are numerous policy options to enhance resilience, this thesis focuses on role of small-scale agriculture and local food systems. This thesis will argue that provincial and local governments in British Columbia should pursue policies designed to expand small-scale food production and strengthen local food economies, as these scales of agriculture offer the most practical and politically feasible way to create a more resilient food system. To gather policy options that can achieve this goal, this thesis relies on ideas and insights gathered from sixteen interviews with a diverse group of small-scale farmers throughout B.C. These on-farm perspectives are then evaluated within the complex policy environment that impacts agriculture policy. Agriculture policy in B.C. is influenced by multiple variables, including established policies and financial investments that support large-scale and international agriculture, limited government budgets, challenging relations between provincial and local governments, and bureaucratic challenges with implementing and operating agriculture programs. Despite these challenges, there are numerous policy opportunities and partners that can help policies to support small-scale production succeed. This thesis analyses these obstacles and opportunities, and puts forward a comprehensive list of policy options organized by their political practicality. / Graduate / w.mattdell@gmail.com