18 resultados para Space biology

em Brock University, Canada


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The topic of this thesis is marginaVminority popular music and the question of identity; the term "marginaVminority" specifically refers to members of racial and cultural minorities who are socially and politically marginalized. The thesis argument is that popular music produced by members of cultural and racial minorities establishes cultural identity and resists racist discourse. Three marginaVminority popular music artists and their songs have been chosen for analysis in support of the argument: Gil Scott-Heron's "Gun," Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" and Robbie Robertson's "Sacrifice." The thesis will draw from two fields of study; popular music and postcolonialism. Within the area of popular music, Theodor Adorno's "Standardization" theory is the focus. Within the area of postcolonialism, this thesis concentrates on two specific topics; 1) Stuart Hall's and Homi Bhabha's overlapping perspectives that identity is a process of cultural signification, and 2) Homi Bhabha's concept of the "Third Space." For Bhabha (1995a), the Third Space defines cultures in the moment of their use, at the moment of their exchange. The idea of identities arising out of cultural struggle suggests that identity is a process as opposed to a fixed center, an enclosed totality. Cultures arise from historical memory and memory has no center. Historical memory is de-centered and thus cultures are also de-centered, they are not enclosed totalities. This is what Bhabha means by "hybridity" of culture - that cultures are not unitary totalities, they are ways of knowing and speaking about a reality that is in constant flux. In this regard, the language of "Otherness" depends on suppressing or marginalizing the productive capacity of culture in the act of enunciation. The Third Space represents a strategy of enunciation that disrupts, interrupts and dislocates the dominant discursive construction of US and THEM, (a construction explained by Hall's concept of binary oppositions, detailed in Chapter 2). Bhabha uses the term "enunciation" as a linguistic metaphor for how cultural differences are articulated through discourse and thus how differences are discursively produced. Like Hall, Bhabha views culture as a process of understanding and of signification because Bhabha sees traditional cultures' struggle against colonizing cultures as transforming them. Adorno's theory of Standardization will be understood as a theoretical position of Western authority. The thesis will argue that Adorno's theory rests on the assumption that there is an "essence" to music, an essence that Adorno rationalizes as structure/form. The thesis will demonstrate that constructing music as possessing an essence is connected to ideology and power and in this regard, Adorno's Standardization theory is a discourse of White Western power. It will be argued that "essentialism" is at the root of Western "rationalization" of music, and that the definition of what constitutes music is an extension of Western racist "discourses" of the Other. The methodological framework of the thesis entails a) applying semiotics to each of the three songs examined and b) also applying Bhabha's model of the Third Space to each of the songs. In this thesis, semiotics specifically refers to Stuart Hall's retheorized semiotics, which recognizes the dual function of semiotics in the analysis of marginal racial/cultural identities, i.e., simultaneously represent embedded racial/cultural stereotypes, and the marginal raciaVcultural first person voice that disavows and thus reinscribes stereotyped identities. (Here, and throughout this thesis, "first person voice" is used not to denote the voice of the songwriter, but rather the collective voice of a marginal racial/cultural group). This dual function fits with Hall's and Bhabha's idea that cultural identity emerges out of cultural antagonism, cultural struggle. Bhabha's Third Space is also applied to each of the songs to show that cultural "struggle" between colonizers and colonized produces cultural hybridities, musically expressed as fusions of styles/sounds. The purpose of combining semiotics and postcolonialism in the three songs to be analyzed is to show that marginal popular music, produced by members of cultural and racial minorities, establishes cultural identity and resists racist discourse by overwriting identities of racial/cultural stereotypes with identities shaped by the first person voice enunciated in the Third Space, to produce identities of cultural hybridities. Semiotic codes of embedded "Black" and "Indian" stereotypes in each song's musical and lyrical text will be read and shown to be overwritten by the semiotic codes of the first person voice, which are decoded with the aid of postcolonial concepts such as "ambivalence," "hybridity" and "enunciation."

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Graffiti, Memory and Contested Space: Mnemonic Initiatives Following Periods of Trauma and/or Repression in Buenos Aires, Argentina This thesis concerns the popular articulation ofmemory following periods or incidents of trauma in Argentina. I am interested in how groups lay claim to various public spaces in the city and how they convert these spaces into mnemonic battlegrounds. In considering these spaces of trauma and places of memory, I am primarily interested in how graffiti writing (stencils, spray-paint, signatures, etchings, wall-paintings, murals and installations) is used to make these spaces transmit particular memories that impugn official versions of the past. This thesis draws on literatures focused on popular/public memory. Scholars argue that memory is socially constructed and thus actively contested. Marginal initiatives such as graffiti writing challenge the memory projects of the state as well as state projects that are perceived by citizens to be 'inadequate,' 'inappropriate,' and/or as promoting the erasure of memory. Many of these initiatives are a reaction to the proreconciliation and pro-oblivion strategies of previous governments. I outline that the history of silences and impunity, and a longstanding emphasis on reconciliation at the expense of truth and justice has created an environment of vulnerable memory in Argentina. Popular memory entrepreneurs react by aggressively articulating their memories in time and in space. As a result of this intense memory work, the built landscape in Buenos Aires is dotted with mnemonic initiatives that aim to contradict or subvert officially sanctioned memories. I also suggest that memory workers in Argentina persistently and carefially use the sites of trauma as well as key public spaces to ensure official as well as popular audiences . The data for this project was collected in five spaces in Buenos Aires, the Plaza de Mayo, Plaza Congreso, La Republica Cromanon nightclub, Avellaneda Train Station and El Olimpo, a former detention centre from the military dictatorship.

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Early in his landmark ecocritical book The Comedy of Survival, Joseph Meeker develops an intriguing hypothesis about human behaviour. He remarks the species Homo sapiens tend to behave like an invasive or pioneering organism, entering a bio-geographical region and aggressively outcompeting all other species for space and resources. Moreover, he suggests, human cultural traditions, at least in the West, have reinforced such behaviour, continually insisting that the impulses he describes are both necessary and right. While Meeker's work goes on to assess a number of literary works in both the tragic and comic modes, his work never fully explores this hypothesis in the context of human pioneers; that is, there is no ~xploration o( how these themes manifest themselves within our culture and what role they might play in the culture of specific pioneering groups. This project is an attempt at just such an analysis, examining the validity of Meeker's hypothesis through a case study of settler literature in Upper Canada/Ontario between the . years 1800-1867. It explores Meeker's work within three main areas: first, Chapter Two situates his book historically within the field of ecocriticism, showing what came before and the explosion of ecocritical inquiry that followed its release. This chapter also delves into the rift between the natural sciences and humanities, arguing that a move towards deeper interdisciplinarity is r:tecessary for the future. Chapter Three examines the biological and ecological ground on which Meeker rests his hypothesis through exploring evolutionary biology as well as invasive and pioneer species behaviour. Lastly, Chapter Four examines how these ecological principles are manifested in the writings of early Canadian settlers, suggesting that Meeker's hypothesis indeed finds itself on stable footing.

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Discourse in the provincial education system that includes Aboriginal peoples is a convoluted one-sided affair. This has contributed to the limited academic success for Aboriginal secondary students in the provincial school system. The Office of the Auditor General (2004) announced a 27-28 year gap in Academic success compared to non- Aboriginal students (p. I). Both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal stakeholders are fiiistrated and confused with the lack of support for long-term solutions to address academic success for Aboriginal students. The boundaries in education that exist between the dominant society of Canada and Aboriginal peoples in education are hindering the development of ethical space in which to negotiate and apply "concrete arguments and concepts" (Ermine, 2000, p. 140) for 'best' solutions across the cultural divide. Recent literature suggests a gap in knowledge to address this cultural divide. This study reveals racism is still prevalent and the problem lies in the fallacy of Euro-Western pedagogical beliefs. There is a need to design ethical space that will assist transformation of cross-relations in education for inclusion of Aboriginal voices and content. I submit that ethical space involves physical and abstract space. This report is a qualitative, exploratory, and single case study of one northern Ontario secondary school attended by First Nations and Metis peoples who comprise 35% of the school population. Twenty-six stakeholders volunteered to participate in six interviews. The volunteers in this study are Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. Aboriginal peoples are firom two First Nations, and Metis peoples. It is an Aboriginal designed and delivered study that a) describes an Aboriginally-designed research method to gather data across cultural divides in a secondary school, b) reviews Tri-Council Policy Section 6 (TCPS) regarding 'good practices' in ethical research involving Aboriginal peoples, and c) summarizes stakeholder perspectives of the 'best educational environment' for one secondary school.

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The reproductive biology of the Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) was studied on Gull Island, Presqu'ile Provincial Park, Ontario, in 1976 and 1977. Early started clutches (comprising the majority of clutches on Gull Island) in 1977 produced more chicks per nest (2.20 ± 0.09) than late started clutches (0.86 ± 0.13) as a result of reductions in mean clutch size, hatching success and fledging success with date of clutch initiation. Seasonal changes in mean clutch size, hatching success and fledging success also resulted in early clutches, initiated at the peak of clutch starts, producing more chicks per nest (2.34 ± 0.11) than either pre-peak (2.13 ± 0.20) or post-peak (1.82 ± 0.29) clutches. Possible reasons for these trends, including the observed predominance of immature plumaged, breeding gulls in late started areas, are discussed. Clutches were deserted at night for varying lengths of time from at least 15 April until 10 May, 1977. It is suggested that this nocturnal desertion behaviour resulted in the enhancement of inter- and intra-clutch hatching synchrony in early started areas and further, that this may in part explain the existence of the behaviour in terms of its adaptive significance.

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Several factors influencing reproductive success were investigated at a Common Tern colony at Port Colborne, Ontario in 1976. In general three egg clutches hatched better than two egg clutches and early started clutches hatched eggs and fledged chicks better than late clutches; the fledging success of two and three egg clutches was similar. Early clutches took longer to hatch and hatched more synchronously than did late clutches. While hatching success differed with nesting substrate used fledging success' did not* No relationship was found between either incubation attentiveness and reproductive success or between incubation attentiveness and clutch size* At no time did food availability appear to be a factor limiting the successful upbringing of two chick broods. While fCf chicks (i.e. chicks hatching from the last laid eggs of three egg clutches) generally survived and grew poorly relative to their brood mates they grew best when they originated from clutches that hatched relatively asynchronously.

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Aspects of the breeding biology of two Lake Erie Herri ng Gull colonies were studied in 1975 and 1976. In 1976 the incubation attention given 2-egg and 3-egg clutches initiated early and late in the season was measured. Brood size at one colony was artificially increased or decreased by addition of chicks shortly after hatching. Hatching success was not consistently re~ated to clutch size but early nesters were more successful than late nes'ters. Differences in hatching success between 2-egg and 3-egg clutches were a function of the time of clutch initiation with the clutch size having the greater proportion of its nests initiated early in the season being more successful. The incubation attentiveness of parents of 2-egg and 3-ev,g , and early and late clutches was similar. Most nests were incubated greater than 95% of the time although t heir hatching success was similar ' to those incubated less than 75% of the time. Fledging success, chick growth and weight at fledging were similar among broods of one, two and three chicks and artificially increased broods of four and five chicks. Fledging success was highest for o.e chick broods reduced from two and three chick broods.

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Drawing on a growing literature on the interconnection of queer theory, sexuality and space, this thesis critically assesses the development, implementation and impact of a campus-based Positive Space Campaign aimed at raising the visibility and number of respectful, supportive, educational and welcoming spaces for lesbian, gay, bi, trans, two-spirited, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) students staff and faculty. The analysis, based on participatory action research (PAR), interrogates the extent to which the Positive Space Campaign challenges heteronormativity on campus. I contend that the Campaign, in its attempt to challenge dominant notions of sex, gender and sexuality, disrupts heterosexual space. Further, as I consider the meanings of 'queer', I consider the extent to which Positive Space Campaigns may be 'queering' space, by contributing to an 'imagined' campus space free of sexual and gender-based discrimination. The case study contributes to queer theory, the literature on sexuality and space, the literature on queer organizing in educational spaces and to broader queer organizing efforts in Canada.

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There is an increase in the number of older adults 85 and over, who are choosing to live alone within the community. Moreover, older adults who live alone are reportedly spending an extensive amount of time alone within the home environment. In an effort to provide additional support and resources to older adults living in the community, a compliment of services are being offered through public and private organizations. These in-home supports focus on the instrumental or functional tasks of daily living, such as personal and rehabilitative care, nourishment, maintenance and upkeep of the home, as well as volunteer social visitation. However leisure resources and programs are not included among these services. Consequently, this creates a gap in leisure provision among this segment of the population. Throughout the life course, an individual's identity, role and purpose are developed and sustained through instrumental work roles in the formal and informal sector, as well as through personally meaningful leisure pastimes and experiences. Although roles shift post retirement, participation in instrumental and expressive activities can provide opportunities through which older adults are able to fulfill their need for agency (individuality and autonomy) and affiliation (social relatedness). Therefore barriers that inhibit instrumental or leisure experiences can negatively impact older adults' quality of life. This study explored the leisure lifestyles of four older adults, all of whom were over 85, lived alone within the community and were oriented to person, time and place. It became apparent that participants ordered their lives around a routine that consisted of instrumental, expressive and socially integrated tasks and activities. Moreover participants purposely chose to remain at home because their home environment facilitated freedom, choice and independence. As a result all four participants viewed their independence within the home as a critical determinant to their overall quality of life. Challenges associated with the home environment, participants' personal capacities and relationships were negotiated on a daily basis. Failure to positively adapt to these challenges inhibited meaningful engagement and personal fulfillment. Traditionally, leisure service delivery has been offered within institutions and through various community based venues. As a result leisure provision has been focused on the needs of the frail elderly who reside in institutions or the well elderly who are able to access leisure amenities within the community. However the growing number of older adults electing to live alone is on the rise. As individuals age the home becomes the preferred context for leisure experiences. If older adults are choosing to live alone, then both their instrumental and leisure needs must be addressed. As a result, it is imperative that leisure professionals extend the scope of service delivery to include home centered older adults.

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This thesis consists of a quantitative analysis of the regional prevalence of certain artistic motifs as they appear in Minoan wall painting of the Neopalatial period. This will help to establish the relative degree of artistic autonomy exercised by each of the sites included in this study. The results show that the argument for itinerant artists during this time period is a strong one, but the assumption that these travelling artists were being controlled by any one palace-centre is erroneous. Rather, the similarities and differences seen suggest that the choices were predicated either by the specific patrons, or by the function of the associated building or room. Thus, the motifs found within this study should be understood as constituting a cultural identity, with greater or lesser degrees of regional homogeneity, which act as one facet of a number of cultural indicators that can be used to better understand the role of artists and regional dynamics on the island during the Bronze Age.

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One of the most common bee genera in the Niagara Region, the genus Ceratina (Hymenoptera: Apidae) is composed of four species, C. dupla, C. calcarata, the very rare C. strenua, and a previously unknown species provisionally named C. near dupla. The primary goal of this thesis was to investigate how these closely related species coexist with one another in the Niagara ~ee community. The first necessary step was to describe and compare the nesting biologies and life histories of the three most common species, C. dupla, C. calcarata and the new C. near dupla, which was conducted in 2008 via nest collections and pan trapping. Ceratina dupla and C. calcarata were common, each comprising 49% of the population, while C. near dupla was rare, comprising only 2% of the population. Ceratina dupla and C. near dupla both nested more commonly in teasel (Dipsacus sp.) in the sun, occasionally in raspberry (Rubus sp.) in the shade, and never in shady sumac (Rhus sp.), while C. calcarata nested most commonly in raspberry and sumac (shaded) and occasionally in teasel (sunny). Ceratina near dupla differed from both C. dupla and C. calcarata in that it appeared to be partially bivoltine, with some females founding nests very early and then again very late in the season. To examine the interactions and possible competition for nests that may be taking place between C. dupla and C. calcarata, a nest choice experiment was conducted in 2009. This experiment allowed both species to choose among twigs from all three substrates in the sun and in the shade. I then compared the results from 2008 (where bees chose from what was available), to where they nested when given all options (2009 experiment). Both C. dupla and C. calcarata had the same preferences for microhabitat and nest substrate in 2009, that being raspberry and sumac twigs in the sun. As that microhabitat and nest substrate combination is extremely rare in nature, both species must make a choice. In nature Ceratina dupla nests more often in the preferred microhabitat (sun), while C. calcarata nests in the preferred substrate (raspberry). Nesting in the shade also leads to smaller clutch sizes, higher parasitism and lower numbers of live brood in C. calcarata, suggesting that C. dupla may be outcompeting C. calcarata for the sunny nesting sites. The development and host preferences of Ceratina parasitoids were also examined. Ceratina species in Niagara were parasitized by no less than eight species of arthropod. Six of these were wasps from the superfamily Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera), one was a wasp from the family Ichneumonidae (Hymenoptera) and one was a physogastric mite from the family Pyemotidae (Acari). Parasites shared a wide range of developmental strategies, from ichneumonid larvae that needed to consume multiple Ceratina immatures to complete development, to the species from the Eulophidae (Baryscapus) and Encyrtidae (Coelopencyrtus), in which multiple individuals completed development inside a single Ceratina host. Biological data on parasitoids is scarce in the scientific literature, and this Chapter documents these interactions for future research.

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The present set of experiments was designed to investigate the organization and refmement of young children's face space. Past research has demonstrated that adults encode individual faces in reference to a distinct face prototype that represents the average of all faces ever encountered. The prototype is not a static abstracted norm but rather a malleable face average that is continuously updated by experience (Valentine, 1991); for example, following prolonged viewing of faces with compressed features (a technique referred to as adaptation), adults rate similarly distorted faces as more normal and more attractive (simple attractiveness aftereffects). Recent studies have shown that adults possess category-specific face prototypes (e.g., based on race, sex). After viewing faces from two categories (e.g., Caucasian/Chinese) that are distorted in opposite directions, adults' attractiveness ratings simultaneously shift in opposite directions (opposing aftereffects). The current series of studies used a child-friendly method to examine whether, like adults, 5- and 8-year-old children show evidence for category-contingent opposing aftereffects. Participants were shown a computerized storybook in which Caucasian and Chinese children's faces were distorted in opposite directions (expanded and compressed). Both before and after adaptation (i.e., reading the storybook), participants judged the normality/attractiveness of a small number of expanded, compressed, and undistorted Caucasian and Chinese faces. The method was first validated by testing adults (Experiment I ) and was then refined in order to test 8- (Experiment 2) and 5-yearold (Experiment 4a) children. Five-year-olds (our youngest age group) were also tested in a simple aftereffects paradigm (Experiment 3) and with male and female faces distorted in opposite directions (Experiment 4b). The current research is the first to demonstrate evidence for simple attractiveness aftereffects in children as young as 5, thereby indicating that similar to adults, 5-year-olds utilize norm-based coding. Furthermore, this research provides evidence for racecontingent opposing aftereffects in both 5- and 8-year-olds; however, the opposing aftereffects demonstrated by 5-year-olds were driven largely by simple aftereffects for Caucasian faces. The lack of simple aftereffects for Chinese faces in 5-year-olds may be reflective of young children's limited experience with other-race faces and suggests that children's face space undergoes a period of increasing differentiation over time with respect to race. Lastly, we found no evidence for sex -contingent opposing aftereffects in 5-year-olds, which suggests that young children do not rely on a fully adult-like face space even for highly salient face categories (i.e., male/female) with which they have comparable levels of experience.

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A significant number of adults in adult literacy programs in Ontario have specific learning difficulties. This study sought to examine the holistic factors that contributed to these learners achieving their goals. Through a case study design, the data revealed that a combination of specific learning methods and strategies, along with particular characteristics of the instructor, participant, and class, and the evidence of self-transformation all seemed to contribute to the participant's success in the program. Instructor-directed teaching and cooperative learning were the main learning methods used in the class. General learning strategies employed were the use of core curriculum and authentic documents, and using phonics, repetition, assistive resources, and using activities that appealed to various learning styles. The instructor had a history of both professional development in the area of learning disabilities as well as experience working with learners who had specific learning difficulties. There also seemed to be a goodness of fit between the participant and the instructor. Several characteristics of the participant seemed to aid in his success: his positive self-esteem, self-advocacy skills, self-determination, self-awareness, and the fact that he enjoyed learning. The size (3-5 people) and type of class (small group) also seemed to have an impact. Finally, evidence that the participant went through a self-transformation seemed to contribute to a positive learner identity. These results have implications for practice, theory, and further research in adult education.

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Neoliberalism is having a significant and global impact on political, social and economic life across spaces. This work illustrates how neoliberalism is attempting to change the ways in which the urban poor - particularly those that participate in street vending - use urban spaces in Lima, Peru. Using municipal policies, newspaper articles and local academic texts I argue that there is a changing marginality in Lima that is being experienced by street vendors, and currently in los canas of Lima. In particular, I discuss formalization, a neoliberal strategy in street vending policy, which is used with eradication and social assistance strategies in attempts to re-regulate street vendors.

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Adults code faces in reference to category-specific norms that represent the different face categories encountered in the environment (e.g., race, age). Reliance on such norm-based coding appears to aid recognition, but few studies have examined the development of separable prototypes and the way in which experience influences the refinement of the coding dimensions associated with different face categories. The present dissertation was thus designed to investigate the organization and refinement of face space and the role of experience in shaping sensitivity to its underlying dimensions. In Study 1, I demonstrated that face space is organized with regard to norms that reflect face categories that are both visually and socially distinct. These results provide an indication of the types of category-specific prototypes that can conceivably exist in face space. Study 2 was designed to investigate whether children rely on category-specific prototypes and the extent to which experience facilitates the development of separable norms. I demonstrated that unlike adults and older children, 5-year-olds rely on a relatively undifferentiated face space, even for categories with which they receive ample experience. These results suggest that the dimensions of face space undergo significant refinement throughout childhood; 5 years of experience with a face category is not sufficient to facilitate the development of separable norms. In Studies 3 through 5, I examined how early and continuous exposure to young adult faces may optimize the face processing system for the dimensions of young relative to older adult faces. In Study 3, I found evidence for a young adult bias in attentional allocation among young and older adults. However, whereas young adults showed an own-age recognition advantage, older adults exhibited comparable recognition for young and older faces. These results suggest that despite the significant experience that older adults have with older faces, the early and continuous exposure they received with young faces continues to influence their recognition, perhaps because face space is optimized for young faces. In Studies 4 and 5, I examined whether sensitivity to deviations from the norm is superior for young relative to older adult faces. I used normality/attractiveness judgments as a measure of this sensitivity; to examine whether biases were specific to norm-based coding, I asked participants to discriminate between the same faces. Both young and older adults were more accurate when tested with young relative to older faces—but only when judging normality. Like adults, 3- and 7-year-olds were more accurate in judging the attractiveness of young faces; however, unlike adults, this bias extended to the discrimination task. Thus by 3 years of age children are more sensitive to differences among young relative to older faces, suggesting that young children's perceptual system is more finely tuned for young than older adult faces. Collectively, the results of this dissertation help elucidate the development of category-specific norms and clarify the role of experience in shaping sensitivity to the dimensions of face space.