INSIDE THE REZ CROSS: AN ASSESSMENT OF HOSTING EVACUEES DURING A WILDFIRE DISASTER IN BEARDY’S & OKEMASIS FIRST NATION

Wildfires in northern Saskatchewan cause evacuations of Indigenous communities every year in summer. The summer of 2015 brought with it one of the most destructive and widespread wildfire season in Saskatchewan history, provoking massive evacuations of northern communities to shelters in urban centres across the province. Alongside provincial and local governments and the Red Cross, First Nations also took the lead in organizing and establishing their own evacuation centres on their reserves. This research considers the case of Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation’s emergency response (through “Rez Cross”), which adopted a culturally-based approach to hosting evacuees. To understand how planning for and responding to wildfire emergencies can be more inclusive of cultural values, I created and designed a comprehensive wildfire emergency management framework. This framework is based on a literature review and qualitative methodology consisting of document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The literature review considers three key themes. First, the concept of effectiveness is used to understand critical elements in developing and evaluating an emergency plan. Second, a dual perspective considering both processes and outcomes is used to extract key meanings in planning and implementing emergency plans. Third, the role of culture in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is considered, specifically, using evidence from Indigenous-led emergency responses to determine how culture is incorporated and what impact cultural responses have on evacuated communities. Hand in hand with this literature review, I conducted document analysis and semi-structured interviews to gather insights from existing emergency guidelines and plans and from people involved with planning and implementing evacuations. I interviewed members of Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation (BOFN), federal government officials, Red Cross representatives, and leaders of evacuated communities. The findings revealed that, in its emergency planning, BOFN developed a holistic culturally-based strategy rooted in inner cultural symbols, traditions, principles, and ideas that define BOFN as a community

Rheology and water mobility of low sodium bread doughs prepared with crosslinking enzymes and organic acids

New regulations from the Government of Canada regarding sodium limits in foods have generated technical challenges for products such as bread, which requires sodium chloride (NaCl) as one of its four essential ingredients. NaCl has importance in proper gluten network development, where reduced NaCl can cause high dough stickiness and handling issues. The overall goal of this study was to examine the use of enzymes to help alleviate stickiness within a low NaCl environment, and to deepen our understanding of the role water and some yeast metabolites play in dough handling. This work examined the effectiveness of two crosslinking enzymes, glucose oxidase (GO) and transglutaminase (TG) at improving dough handling characteristics and reducing stickiness in low sodium doughs prepared with two cultivars Pembina and Harvest. The cultivars were chosen due to their opposing characteristics: Pembina was previously shown to have strong dough handling and low stickiness in reduced-salt systems, whereas Harvest was the opposite. Overall, it was found that both GO and TG were effective at improving parameters (dough rheology, stickiness), however, GO was more effective than TG at lower concentrations. Cultivar-type was significant in the case of every investigated parameter, whereas enzymes produced more significant changes to these characteristics when dough was produced with the weaker flour (Harvest) and at low salt levels. Slightly more complex model doughs were also assessed, containing a variety of organic acids which can be produced by yeast. The inclusion of these acids (excluding ascorbic acid) had negative effects on dough rheology and increased dough stickiness but did not have large effects on percentage of glutenin macropolymers, and minimally increased the freezable water content. Ascorbic acid trends were different than other acids, which was expected due to its use as an oxidizing agent for increasing dough strength, however, it did not produce improvements when used in tandem with GO. The inclusion of GO improved dough rheology and reduced dough stickiness as expected, and when it was included with these acids (excluding ascorbic acid) samples showed behavior in between the observed results of GO without acid, and control samples without either acid or GO. The molecular mobility and diffusion properties of water in model dough systems by low-field 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy were also investigated. It was determined that acid inclusion did not affect the overall structure of the doughs, and was only slightly affected by cultivar-type. Molecular motion on the MHz timescale, which relates to water molecule tumbling and motion on the polymer surfaces, was significantly lower in doughs containing acid or for those prepared with Pembina flour. Motion on the kHz timescale (relating to protein side chain motion) was significantly altered by Pembina doughs and acid inclusion, however, it was not determined if this motion became faster or slower. Diffusion characteristics were not altered by formulation changes. Overall, the inclusion of acids reduced motion significantly on the MHz timescale and altered it significantly on the kHz timescale but did not appear to affect the overall structure significantly, suggesting that these acids are mostly active at the surfaces of the polymers such as protein side chains

Middle Parks: Development of State and Provincial Parks in the United States and Canada, 1890-1990

This dissertation is a comparative study of the development of state parks in the United States and provincial parks in Canada from 1890 to 1990. The study focuses on four park system cases studies: Pennsylvania and Idaho in the United States and Ontario and Alberta in Canada. This study relies on three main levels of comparison. Firstly, it compares the development of parks at the national level. Secondly, it compares the development of parks in the East and West. Thirdly, it compares the development of rural and urban/near-urban state and provincial parks. These comparative levels of analysis are aided by two primary methodological techniques. The first method is a timeline visualization of park development through time that relies on a colour-coded categorization system. Under this system, each park in each park system is mapped on the timelines based on the primary reason each piece of land was chosen. The eight categories are as follows: Education (Environment), Historical, Post-Agriculture, Post-Industry, Post-Timber, Preservation, Recreational, and Resource Extraction. This methodology is paired with an individual park case-study approach that illustrates how the patterns identified by the timelines affected individual parks, both socially and materially. In the first half of the century, all four park systems prioritized the acquisition of affordable land in rural regions. By the second half of the century, all four park systems had altered their park development priorities to accommodate geographic accessibility over economic viability. In both cases, preservation was not the primary objective of park development. The timelines demonstrate that preservation did not become a priority of any of the park systems until the 1980s. This study asserts that park history should look beyond park borders to the peripheries and greater regions in which each park lies in order to fully understand each park in its entirety and how each park relates to broader historical forces. This study shows that parks were not simply tools of preservation or recreation. Rather, forces that supported use of these parks and protection of these parks coexisted and were often one and the same

CHEMICAL INTERACTIONS OF CITRATE, CALCIUM AND PHOSPHATE IN A CALCAREOUS SASKATCHEWAN SUBSOIL

The addition of citrate into biostimulatory amendment solutions for the in-situ bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbons is a relatively new concept. Research has shown that addition of citrate in combination with phosphate can potentially decrease P sorption and thus increase P mobility and bioavailability. In this thesis, soil cores from a hydrocarbon-contaminated site were first characterized to determine soil characteristics. The soil cores had a high clay content with heterogeneous soil layers, leading to the hypothesis that preferential flow paths are likely dominant in transport onsite. As a manipulative experiment, soil Ca levels were modified via three treatments, Ca Saturated, Ca Depleted, and the control soil to ascertain the effect of Ca upon citrate and P retention. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the change in total Ca levels as well as differences in mineralogy of the treated soils. In chapter three, phosphate adsorption isotherms and citrate desorption isotherm experiments were designed to quantify the relationships among soil Ca, P adsorption, and the concentration of citrate (0-50mM) at equilibrium conditions. The results demonstrated that high citrate levels (above 5mM) would allow less P to be adsorbed onto the soil surface. Phosphorus K-edge XANES were measured on soil samples treated with citrate and Ca to determine the relationship between chemical speciation and citrate interactions. The research led to the discovery that higher than expected (>5mM) levels of citrate were required to get a significant desorption in P; higher levels of soil Ca were correlated with more adsorbed P. In chapter four, kinetics experiments combined with a spectroscopic approach yielded a better understanding of the citrate-phosphate-calcium reaction dynamics. By using the Pseudo Second order model, all parameters from the kinetics experiments were highly correlated to model experimental values. The major finding of the kinetic study was that soil Ca level strongly influenced citrate desorption effectiveness. Overall this thesis showed that the connection between Ca, citrate, and P was important in determining rates and mechanisms of chemical interaction and to be able to build and apply a model to the system

STEREOCHEMICAL DIVERSITY IN THE SUBSTRATE-CONTROLLED STEREOSELECTIVE ALDOL COUPLINGS OF CHIRAL REACTANTS

The abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo

Role of the RpoE sigma factor and two-component Cpx systems, in biofilm formation of Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Enteritidis

The abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo

The Anthropology of SARS and the Leveraging of Cultural Logics in Vietnam

With the accessibility of air travel, infectious diseases such as SARS, MERS, Avian Influenza and Ebola have become extremely mobile. Although severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) originated in China, it wasn't diagnosed there. Chinese-American businessman Johnny Chen was diagnosed on his arrival to Vietnam from China in February 2003, spurring the WHO to issue an unprecedented global alert. An acute and mysterious respiratory disease was ravaging Vietnam. Dr. Carlo Urbani, the doctor who first diagnosed SARS, leveraged the cultural logics in Vietnam to mobilize the European Union, the WHO, and the communist government into action with such rapidity that Vietnam stayed ahead of the curve, and was the first country to eradicate SARS. From the perspective of critical medical anthropology (Singer 2016), utilizing a theory of cultural logics (Enfield 2000), and Foucaldian biopower (1982), I explore Vietnam’s embedded cultural traits and the interaction between the state and the population “the conduct of conduct” (Rabinow, Foucault 1984:18) through the Ministry of Health and the central government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam during the pandemic outbreak. Vietnam is a case-study in disease containment; the first country – as a developing nation – to control a mass contagion in the contemporary age

Field comparison of intranasal and injectable bovine respiratory disease vaccination on beef calf antibody concentrations, average daily gain, and bovine respiratory disease morbidity

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is a multifactorial disease complex that is common in feedlot operations, where it causes major economic loss through: reduction in average daily gain, treatment costs, and mortality. Reducing BRD incidence would increase profits to producers, reduce antimicrobial use, and improve animal welfare. Two studies were performed to compare clinical vaccine response. First, a randomized control study enrolled 75 crossbred heifer calves into an injectable modified live viral (IJ-MLV) group, intranasal homologous boost (IN-MLV) group, or intranasal heterologous boost (IN-KV) group. Vaccines were administered at birth, ‘‘turnout’’ (~2 months of age), and weaning. Blood samples and weights were collected at ‘turnout’, two weeks post ‘turnout’, weaning, and two weeks post weaning, with weights also being collected at birth and 87 days post weaning. Blood samples were analyzed with an ELISA for bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) and bovine herpes virus type 1 and virus neutralization for bovine viral diarrhea virus types 1 and 2. No differences were observed between the average daily gains of the three groups. The IN-KV group had significantly higher BRSV antibody concentrations than the other groups at all time points except for ‘turnout’ but had lower bovine viral diarrhea virus type 2 concentrations at weaning and two weeks post weaning. Next, a field study was conducted at two commercial ranches in central Saskatchewan, enrolling 645 calves from one farm and 481 calves from a second farm. The calves were randomly enrolled by vaccine type at branding into either an IJ-MLV group or IN-MLV group. Calves were managed extensively, until weaning when they were moved to a local feedlot. At the feedlot calves were vaccinated and separated into steer and heifer pens and were monitored daily for disease. Weights were collected upon arrival and at 60 days post weaning. Morbidity and mortality due to bovine respiratory disease and average daily gains were analyzed. The results show no significant difference between the two groups for these outcomes. These two studies show the importance of considering vaccine type and administration route when developing BRD control programs

Out-of-plane behaviour of concrete block walls with unbonded reinforcement

The use of grout in conventional reinforced masonry construction increases the cost and time of construction but, when used in combination with reinforcing steel, allows walls subject to out-of-plane loads an enhanced ability to span between lateral support levels. Reinforced concrete block walls constructed in this manner can typically span at least two stories in constrast to the limited single storey capacity of unreinforced walls. However, the use of grout as needed for the construction of these walls increases their self-weight, and requires an additional trade on-site. A novel, potentially cost-efficient, approach to achieve reasonable load-carrying capacity in masonry walls was therefore investigated that involves the use of minimally stressed reinforcement anchored at the top and bottom of the wall. This allows for a grout-free structural system that relies upon arching to resist the flexural effects resulting from out-of-plane loads and so make more effective use of the compressive capacity of the masonry assembly. An experimental program was therefore conducted at the University of Saskatchewan to investigate the performance of concrete masonry block walls reinforced with non-prestressed, unbonded reinforcement. This study included a total of 21 walls that were built to identify potential alternatives to unreinforced and conventionally grouted and reinforced walls. The strength and serviceability of these walls was evaluated. All walls in this program were two and a half blocks wide and 14 courses tall and were built in running bond using standard 200 mm concrete blocks. Six replicates of both unreinforced and partially grouted, conventionally reinforced walls served as control specimens. An analysis of the data obtained during testing revealed that the walls with unbonded reinforcement were inherently stable with maximum loads approaching those of partially grouted, conventionally reinforced walls. Furthermore, an analytical approach is presented herein that is based on the assumption that the walls with unbonded reinforcement could be modeled using a three hinged mechanism. The analytical model was found to match with the experimentally obtained load versus mid-height deflection data reasonably well throughout the post-cracking range

A bioassay to assess bioactivity of saflufenacil in western Canadian soils

Non-Peer ReviewedSaflufenacil is a Group 14 herbicide and works by inhibiting an enzyme necessary for integrity of cell membranes in plants. Limited information is available on saflufenacil behavior in soils. The goal of this research was to evaluate the effect of soil properties on saflufenacil bioactivity in a range of prairie soils