Search UNB Scholar
About UNB Scholar
UNB Scholar is an institutional repository initiative of UNB Libraries intended to collect, preserve, showcase, and promote the open access scholarly output of the UNB community. Use UNB Scholar to explore specific collections, or search all content in the repository. Material submitted to the repository will also be freely discoverable online through Google and other major search engines.
UNB Libraries welcomes submissions to UNB Scholar. Find out more about depositing your publications!
Communities in UNB Scholar
Select a community to browse its collections.
Recent Submissions
Unlocking the benefits of transfer learning in edge-cloud computing environments
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-04) Nuh Mih, Atah; Cao, Hung
Transfer learning’s success motivates the need to understand its characteristics across cloud, edge, and edge-cloud computing paradigms. Thus, this extensive research evaluates the role of transfer learning in 1) cloud computing; 2) edge computing; and 3) edge-cloud computing. It first proposes a transfer learning approach to address the data limitation and model scalability challenges for machine learning in a cloud computing environment. Then, this study provides a model optimization for deep neural networks to improve hardware efficiency for training models on edge devices and investigates the role of transfer learning on resource consumption. Finally, a weight-averaging method is proposed for collaborative knowledge transfer across a unified edge and cloud computing environment to improve training performance for local edge models and global server models. The research conclusively shows that transfer learning benefits edge and cloud computing paradigms both individually and collaboratively.
An investigation of designated pedestrian grade crossings and flangeway fillers
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-04) Morrison, William Robert; Hanson, Trevor
There have been fatalities in Canada due to wheelchairs becoming immobilized in the "flangeway gap”, the gap between the road and the railway tracks that allows the train wheel to pass unimpeded. The Transportation Safety Board has identified the potential of flangeway fillers to eliminate the gap, but research on product suitability is needed, including deployment criteria. Crossings can be designated by road authorities for persons using assistive devices and Transport Canada’s Grade Crossing Standards outline the geometric requirements. Designated crossings may be candidates for flangeway fillers, however, the road authority designation process is not well understood at a national level. The following presents an inventory of practices for crossing designation among select road authorities across Canada. An analysis of designated crossings was conducted, and observations were generated. Finally, an economic evaluation of these products was conducted, and a discussion of potential next steps in this field is provided.
“Heartbreaking, hardest part of the job”: Acute care nurses’ work with patients with dementia who self-neglect their hygiene
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-04) Morris, Patricia; McCloskey, Rose; O’Regan, Karla
Introduction: When nurses encounter people in institutional settings who are living with dementia and self-neglecting their hygiene, they are challenged to provide care that respects autonomy while upholding the ethical principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence.
Method: The method of inquiry for this project was simulation-primed interviews. Eighteen acute care nurses were first immersed in a simulated nursing hand-off report where they heard the story of a patient who had declined offers of assistance with personal hygiene care. Participants were then asked to share how they would respond to this patient as an on-coming staff member.
Findings: In response to the simulation, all participants described what they would do in an ideal world when working with the patient, as well as what they would not do. They talked about the daily work of nursing, and they shared the many creative ways that they would work with the patient to accomplish personal hygiene care in an ideal world. They also shared the many barriers they experience to providing desired care.
Analysis: In describing how they would get the patient washed for the day, participants highlighted the importance of washing someone the right way. They described caring for the patient in the right way as a moral imperative that must be fulfilled to be a Good Nurse. When they encountered barriers to actualizing that care, participants worried that their status as Good Nurses was being called into question. Participants identified the primary barriers to actualizing the moral imperative in the context of dementia care as 1) neoliberal healthcare reform and 2) patients who had been incontinent and continued to decline their assistance with care. In the context of neoliberal healthcare reform, nurses were often unable to re-establish themselves as Good Nurses and experienced moral injury. In the context of self-neglect and incontinence, though, participants were often able to re-establish themselves as Good Nurses through three discursive strategies: 1) describing dementia as a pathological condition inherent to who the person is, 2) nominalizing care, rendering it a deliverable, and 3) describing fecal incontinence as an emergency.
Suspended and attached growth cellular ATP Food-To-Microorganism ratios for real-time reduction in ammonia oxidation detection
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-04) Manning, Amy; Singh, Kripa
A packaged dairy plant waste resource recovery facility in southern USA is experiencing long periods of inefficient ammonia removal. To investigate, alternative food-to microorganism (F:M) ratios using suspended cellular ATP (cATP), attached growth ATP (agATP), and theoretical oxygen demand (ThOD) were used. The system concentrations of ThOD and suspended cATP were key to this systems issues. This study also challenges the conventional assumption that attached growth biomass protects treatment efficiency from surges in organic loading. The percentages of agATP in comparison to suspended cATP in 2022 and 2023 were only 7.2 ± 1.8% and 13 ± 5.0%, respectively. 16S Next-generation sequencing (NGS) confirmed the differences as the top 85% of the suspended biomass community represents only 6% of the attached biomass community while the top 85% of the attached biomass community represents only 5% of the suspended biomass community.
The presence of wild bees and their usage of floral resources in a non-pollinator dependent crop (Solanum tuberosum) with a surrounding forested landscape.
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-04) Malayny, Abigail Victoria; Parachnowitsch, Amy; Vickruck, Jess
Bees are the most important and recognized pollinators for plants across the globe, as many plant species are dependent on pollinators for reproduction. Bees in crops that do not require pollination has not been a large area of study, even though wild bees are still present in these ecosystems. Potato is a non-pollinator dependent crop grown for tubers, of which growth is not impacted by pollination. I examined what bees are found in non-pollinator dependent potato agroecosystems and whether these bees are using potato pollen resources. I collected bees in potato fields, field margins and the surrounding forest using blue vane traps and aerial nets. I found 41 species of wild bees, the most common of which were Lasioglossum and Bombus. Bees were abundant in the field margin and agriculture field but were rarely found in the forest. Seven bee species were found to collect potato pollen, but the majority was collected by Bombus impatiens.