DIGITAL HISTORY: DESIGNING VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS THAT SUPPORT CRITICAL THINKING AND IDEA EXCHANGE, MOTIVATE AND ENGAGE USERS

In my thesis I argue for the use of system designs that: a) open access to a variety of users and allow for collaboration and idea exchange, while at the same time, b) are designed to motivate and engage users. To exemplify my proposed systems design, I created an interactive and open digital history project focused on Romanian culture and identity during Communism, from 1947, when the Communist Party took power by forcing the King to abdicate, until the revolution in 1989, which marked the end of Communism in Romania (Gilberg, 1990, Boia, 2014). In my project, I present the possibility to recreate Habermas’ notion of public sphere and “the unforced force of the better argument” (Habermas, 1989) and Dewey’s (2004) understanding of democracy as a mode of associated living imbued of the spirit of inquiry within contemporary digital history projects. Second, I outline system designs that motivate and engage users, by satisfying the basic psychological needs outlined in Ryan and Deci’s (2000) self-determination theory: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Two more concepts are included to complete the proposed digital history project design: presence (Ryan, Rigby, & Przybylski, 2006) and learner hero (Rigby & Przybylski, 2009).

The Evolution and Reform of Summary Trials in Canadian Military Justice

There is a place where a Canadian citizen can be sent to 30 days detention, by someone who is not a judge, without being represented by counsel, and without having a meaningful right to appeal. It is the summary trial system of the Canadian Armed Forces. This thesis analyses that system and suggests reforms. It is aimed at those who have an interest in improving the administration of military justice at the unit level but want to sufficiently understand the issues before doing so. Through a classic legal approach with elements of legal history and comparative law, this study begins by setting military justice in the Canadian legal firmament. The introductory chapter also explains fundamental concepts, first and foremost the broader notion of discipline, for which summary trial is one of the last maintaining tools. Chapter II describes the current system. An overview of its historical background is first given. Then, each procedural step is demystified, from investigation until review. Chapter III identifies potential breaches of the Charter, highlighting those that put the system at greater constitutional risk: the lack of judicial independence, the absence of hearing transcript, the lack of legal representation and the disparity of treatment between ranks. Alternatives adopted in the Canadian Armed Forces and in foreign jurisdictions, from both common law and civil law traditions, in addressing similar challenges are reviewed in Chapter IV. Chapter V analyses whether the breaches could nevertheless be justified in a free and democratic society. Its conclusion is that, considering the availability of reasonable alternatives, it would be hard to convince a court that the current system is a legitimate impairment of the individual’s legal rights. The conclusion Chapter presents options to address current challenges. First, the approach of ‘depenalization’ taken by the Government in recent Bill C-71 is analysed and criticised. The ‘judicialization’ approach is advocated through a series of 16 recommendations designed not only to strengthen the constitutionality of the system but also to improve the administration of military justice in furtherance of service members’ legal rights.

Building a Rockfall Database Using Remote Sensing: Techniques for Hazard Management in Canadian Rail Corridors

The section of CN railway between Vancouver and Kamloops runs along the base of many hazardous slopes, including the White Canyon, which is located just outside the town of Lytton, BC. The slope has a history of frequent rockfall activity, which presents a hazard to the railway below. Rockfall inventories can be used to understand the frequency-magnitude relationship of events on hazardous slopes, however it can be difficult to consistently and accurately identify rockfall source zones and volumes on large slopes with frequent activity, leaving many inventories incomplete. We have studied this slope as a part of the Canadian Railway Ground Hazard Research Program and have collected remote sensing data, including terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), photographs, and photogrammetry data since 2012, and used change detection to identify rockfalls on the slope. The objective of this thesis is to use a subset of this data to understand how rockfalls identified from TLS data could be used to understand the frequency-magnitude relationship of rockfalls on the slope. This includes incorporating both new and existing methods to develop a semi-automated workflow to extract rockfall events from the TLS data. We show that these methods can be used to identify events as small as 0.01 m3 and that the duration between scans can have an effect on the frequency-magnitude relationship of the rockfalls. We also show that by incorporating photogrammetry data into our analysis, we can create a 3D geological model of the slope and use this to classify rockfalls by lithology, to further understand the rockfall failure patterns. When relating the rockfall activity to triggering factors, we found that the amount of precipitation occurring over the winter has an effect on the overall rockfall frequency for the remainder of the year. These results can provide the railways with a more complete inventory of events compared to records created through track inspection, or rockfall monitoring systems that are installed on the slope. In addition, we can use the database to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of events. The results can also be used as an input to rockfall modelling programs.

Stitching Settler Identities: Canadian Quilts and Their Makers, 1800-1880

Stitching Settler Identities: Canadian Quilts and their Makers, 1800-1880 explores the making, use, and circulation of handmade settler quilts as representation of nineteenth-century women’s social, cultural and economic histories in Canada. An important part of Canadian settlement history is the making and use of handmade quilts in the settler homestead. Handmade coverlets that provided both physical and emotional warmth in the home were a measure of a settler-woman’s careful management of resources and a display of her innovation and creativity. Few settler women recorded their daily experiences; however, most women could sew and quilts offered a method of expression that allowed them to reflect and portray their identities. Thus far, the few studies of quilts have been limited to exhibition catalogues or research that considers a quilt’s aesthetics or its historic significance. While several scholars have called for a reclassification of textile production and needle arts to advance the way in which settler women were viewed as social beings – creating, producing, communicating, and circulating cultural values, most studies on quilts have overlooked a coverlet’s materiality. This study aims to expand the research on quilts as material culture within the context of art history by also considering a quilt’s materiality and when possible, its maker's biography.

Conjuring Canadas: Historians and the Quest to Define a Canadian Nation and its Past, 1920-1967

This dissertation examines the various ways in which Canadian historical researchers confronted the “Canada question,” namely the challenge of defining the basis of a unified national community. In doing so, it follows the scholarship and activities of a network of historians and intellectuals centred on the Canadian Historical Review, a quarterly publication founded in 1920. This study examines their scholarship with the aim of identifying not only the various solutions they posed to the problem, but also the philosophical undercurrents that informed their reasoning in the process. It also traces the rise of a rival network in the Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, a French-language historical publication founded in 1947 that by its very existence posed a significant challenge to the definition of the nation at the core of the Canadian Historical Review. This dissertation argues that the network bound together by the Review was engaged in a hegemonic project, one that sought to present a particular definition of Canada through a historical narrative that rested upon a liberal logic. Yet the greatest sustained challenge they faced in this endeavour emerged from Francophone historical scholars, who, although proposing vastly different Canadas to those imagined at the Canadian Historical Review, came under the sway of a number of liberal currents of thought as well. A detailed summary of the key traits of these liberal Canadas is found in the conclusion.

The impossible anamesis. Memory versus history in Hubert Aquin’s « Blackout »

Soon after joining the Canadian Confederation in 1867, the province of Quebec adopted the phrase « Je me souviens » ("As I recall") as its "national" motto, although many Québécois do not remember today what they were supposed to memorize, as collective subject, when their government voted this motion. My thesis is that contrary to other countries which have a strong sense of history based on a secular tradition, this process was more complicated in Quebec — as if a collective memory loss lied at the heart of it's history. Through a rereading of Hubert Aquin's cult novel, Trou de mémoire (in its English translation Blackout), first published in 1968, I try to illustrate this paradox and to emphasize the heuristic functions of memory blanks, gaps and lapses in certain postmodern narratives, after the historical breakdown of "the great narratives" (Lyotard). In this perspective, the example of Quebec, through the voice of one of its more gifted yet controversial novelist, can be seen as emblematic of what happens when the mnemonic impossibility of rewriting history opens up new possibilities for writing fiction.

The impossible anamesis. Memory versus history in Hubert Aquin’s « Blackout »

Soon after joining the Canadian Confederation in 1867, the province of Quebec adopted the phrase « Je me souviens » ("As I recall") as its "national" motto, although many Québécois do not remember today what they were supposed to memorize, as collective subject, when their government voted this motion. My thesis is that contrary to other countries which have a strong sense of history based on a secular tradition, this process was more complicated in Quebec — as if a collective memory loss lied at the heart of it's history. Through a rereading of Hubert Aquin's cult novel, Trou de mémoire (in its English translation Blackout), first published in 1968, I try to illustrate this paradox and to emphasize the heuristic functions of memory blanks, gaps and lapses in certain postmodern narratives, after the historical breakdown of "the great narratives" (Lyotard). In this perspective, the example of Quebec, through the voice of one of its more gifted yet controversial novelist, can be seen as emblematic of what happens when the mnemonic impossibility of rewriting history opens up new possibilities for writing fiction.

DIGITAL HISTORY: DESIGNING VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS THAT SUPPORT CRITICAL THINKING AND IDEA EXCHANGE, MOTIVATE AND ENGAGE USERS

Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2016-08-29 15:56:53.748

Genetic architecture and sexual conflict in the life history of Drosophila

Because males and females of a species express many homologous traits, sex-specific selection on these traits can shift the opposite sex away from its phenotypic optimum. This mode of sexually antagonistic selection, known as intralocus sexual conflict (IaSC), arises when the evolution of sexual dimorphism is constrained by the two sexes sharing a common gene pool. As IaSC has been historically overlooked, many outstanding questions remain. For example, what is its contribution in maintaining genetic variation for fitness in populations? What characters underlie this variation in fitness? How does the selection history of the population influence the standing genetic variation? I used the model organism Drosophila melanogaster to attempt to resolve some of these questions. The first part of my Master’s project involved assessing the detectability of sexually antagonistic alleles in populations at different stages of adaptation to the laboratory. For the second part of my Master’s project, I looked for evidence of conflict during the development of body size, a well-known sexually dimorphic trait. While the first part of my thesis proved inconclusive, the second part revealed a surprising source of sexual conflict in pre-adult stages of D. melanogaster.

Mining in Northern British Columbia

The history of the settlement of the province is tied to patterns of exploration and min development. In Northern British Columbia the Cariboo goldfields provided the impetus for settlement of the region and the beginning for mining to extend into the watern and northern regions in a series of minor gold rushes. The northern half of the province has a geological diverse mineral base that supports a wide variety of mining, and a gradual improvement of exploration and mining methods due to scientific knowledge and technology provided opportunities for lode gold and base metal mines to be developed. The success of mining is based on world ore prices and competitive markets that impact the economic viability of developing a mine. Mining faces increasing pressures in the northern half of the province due to other resource values, such as tourism or protected areas, that claim and compete for a similar land base.