Responses of crayfish to a reflective environment /

This thesis examines how dominance status of crayfish alters responses to their own reflection. Crayfish are social animals that fight to develop a dominance hierarchy consisting of dominant and subordinate members. After socialization, crayfish were videotaped in an aquarium with mirrors on one half of the tank and a non-reflective plastic on the other half. Dominants paired for 14 days perform more cornering, turning, crossing and spent more time in a reflective environment versus a non-reflective environment. Subordinate crayfish exhibit more reverse walking in a mirrored environment while isolated crayfish show no preference for reflection. This change in behaviour occurs immediately for dominants paired for 30 min while subordinates require 3 days of pairing to exhibit the same behaviour as subordinate crayfish paired for 14 days. Thus, 30 min of pairing is required to enhance responses to a reflection observed in dominant crayfish while 3 days is required to decrease subordinate responses to a reflection. These findings propose that male socialized crayfish respond to their mirror image as they do a male conspecific. Their responses depend on both their dominance status and the length of socialization which suggests that crayfish are learning to behave in a characteristic manner as a result of their social experience.

Scales, networks and uncertainty : an examination of environmental policy-making in Ontario

Through a case-study analysis of Ontario's ethanol policy, this thesis addresses a number of themes that are consequential to policy and policy-making: spatiality, democracy and uncertainty. First, I address the 'spatial debate' in Geography pertaining to the relevance and affordances of a 'scalar' versus a 'flat' ontoepistemology. I argue that policy is guided by prior arrangements, but is by no means inevitable or predetermined. As such, scale and network are pragmatic geographical concepts that can effectively address the issue of the spatiality of policy and policy-making. Second, I discuss the democratic nature of policy-making in Ontario through an examination of the spaces of engagement that facilitate deliberative democracy. I analyze to what extent these spaces fit into Ontario's environmental policy-making process, and to what extent they were used by various stakeholders. Last, I take seriously the fact that uncertainty and unavoidable injustice are central to policy, and examine the ways in which this uncertainty shaped the specifics of Ontario's ethanol policy. Ultimately, this thesis is an exercise in understanding sub-national environmental policy-making in Canada, with an emphasis on how policy-makers tackle the issues they are faced with in the context of environmental change, political-economic integration, local priorities, individual goals, and irreducible uncertainty.

Automatic Inference of Graph Models for Complex Networks with Genetic Programming

Complex networks can arise naturally and spontaneously from all things that act as a part of a larger system. From the patterns of socialization between people to the way biological systems organize themselves, complex networks are ubiquitous, but are currently poorly understood. A number of algorithms, designed by humans, have been proposed to describe the organizational behaviour of real-world networks. Consequently, breakthroughs in genetics, medicine, epidemiology, neuroscience, telecommunications and the social sciences have recently resulted. The algorithms, called graph models, represent significant human effort. Deriving accurate graph models is non-trivial, time-intensive, challenging and may only yield useful results for very specific phenomena. An automated approach can greatly reduce the human effort required and if effective, provide a valuable tool for understanding the large decentralized systems of interrelated things around us. To the best of the author's knowledge this thesis proposes the first method for the automatic inference of graph models for complex networks with varied properties, with and without community structure. Furthermore, to the best of the author's knowledge it is the first application of genetic programming for the automatic inference of graph models. The system and methodology was tested against benchmark data, and was shown to be capable of reproducing close approximations to well-known algorithms designed by humans. Furthermore, when used to infer a model for real biological data the resulting model was more representative than models currently used in the literature.

Graffiti, memory and contested space : mnemonic initiatives following trauma and/or repression in Buenos Aires, Argentina

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.

Do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster? Children's influence on mothers' beliefs, values, and social/cultural practices.

Obtaining mothers' perspectives and descriptions of incidents in which their child(ren) said or did something that influenced the mothers' values, beliefs, and/or social or cultural practices, that is, the content of socialization, was the primary aim of this research. Bakhtin's (2004) metatheoretical account of dialogism was used to frame this study. From a dialogic perspective utterances (for example, the utterances of children in the present study) are events or acts and are presented as one way to view the process of socialization. In part this purpose, and the decision to utilize a qualitative research orientation, was to address a call (Lollis & Kuczynski, 1997) for qualitative or microanalytic analyses to help elucidate the processes of socialization. Mothers (N=10) in this study were able to provide descriptions of incidents in which their child(ren) said or did something that influenced the mother and hence we have some description of the concept of bidirectionality, a well accepted, but undertheorized concept in developmental psychology. While the concepts of multiple sources of influence and contexts are salient areas of research in parent-child socialization, and were mentioned in the informants reporting these areas did not appear to be as salient in the mothers' accounts. Emotions and the meaning mothers 'derived' from the interactions did, however, take much more prominence in the described incidents.