Open Theses & Dissertations

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Shadow of the Living Brightness
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-09) Béchard, Dominique; Sinclair, Sue
Shadow of the Living Brightness comprises a collection of poems informed by theories of unknowing in Christian mystical theology. Although written from a position of secular faith, the dissertation pulls from the gloomy, passionate writings of the Christian mystics (Gregory of Nyssa, Meister Eckhart, Simone Weil) to further ideas about negative capability, the metaphorical image, desire, loneliness, and suicide. These poems attempt to embody what I value in much unorthodox, mystical theology: a focus on the emotion of religion, and a desire for transcendence that has less to do with overcoming aspects of the physical world, and more to do with uncovering layers of proximity to unknown modes of being. The critical introduction to the poetry is made up of four interconnected sections. I look at the metaphorical image’s unknowable properties, as partially defined by Robert Bly’s theory of the emotive imagination (aka “deep image”) and Federico Garcia Lorca’s theory of duende, and I evaluate the paradox of divine union in mystical theology— mysticism’s insistence on the annihilation of selfhood to be near the incomprehensible divine. I also examine mystical loneliness and the concept of objectless desire (desire with no definable end-consolation). Finally, I look at the possibilities of an unfixed, unknowable despair and how these interact with suicidality. Rather than “remaining content” with not-knowing (as Keats famously asks of a poet), the Christian mystics make a point of embracing the agony of unknowing. Mysticism, based on my readings, allows for the painful sense of being meaningfully torn between the corporeal and the transcendent. It relies on ideas of God that abandon the possibility of consolation: “The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it" (Weil 132).
Deformation estimation of industrial objects from a single image
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-09) Eivazi Adli, Sahand; Dubay, Rickey; Pickard, Joshua K.; Sun, Grace
Deformations introduced during the manufacturing process of plastic components degrade the accuracy of their 3D geometric information, hindering computer vision-based inspection. This phenomenon is prevalent among the primary plastic products where the objects are devoid of texture. This work proposes a solution for the deformation estimation of texture-less plastic objects using only a single RGB image. This solution encompasses a unique image dataset of five deformed parts, including both real-world and synthetic images, a novel method for generating mesh labels, sequential deformation, and a training model based on graph convolution. The sequential deformation method overcomes the prevalent chamfer distance algorithm in generating precise mesh labels. The model achieves a sub-millimeter accuracy on synthetic images and approximately 2.0 mm on real images, with an average testing time of 1.5 s on the Google Colab’s resources. The model’s high precision and speed make it suitable for real-world applications.
Housing as a social determinant of health: A closer examination of mental and physical health and housing affordability
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-09) Dweik, Imad; Woodhall-Melnik, Julia
Canada is among the wealthiest nations in the world, yet despite its wealth, many low-to-moderate-income households struggle to afford basic needs such as housing and food. Subsidized housing is offered for renters who struggle with housing unaffordability; however, the demand for this housing is high and growing, which results in long wait times for access to subsidized housing. These waitlists are long and differ in socioeconomic status, stability, and health and supportive services needs and include households who are unhoused and those who are housed in unaffordable and/or precarious accommodations. Despite the varied economic, social, and housing statuses of households on subsidized housing waitlists, there is a dearth of evidence that comprehensively characterizes their particular challenges and needs. Furthermore, the impacts of subsidized housing as a social determinant of health are still being debated and additional research on mechanisms that connect housing to physical and mental health is needed. This dissertation presents a series of manuscripts summarize existing evidence on the relationship between subsidized housing and depression and anxiety, and subsidized housing and physical health. The final paper addresses the question: is being unhoused associated with different scores of depression and psychological distress than being precariously housed? My analysis indicates that both precarious renters and unhoused individuals experience comparably high levels of depression, whereas the unhoused group had higher levels of distress (p =.004). The findings indicate that unstable and unaffordable housing is associated with depression in both renters and unhoused individuals. Further, they display that both groups experience social and economic precarity, which, from a social determinants of health perspective, may be improved through access to affordable and adequate housing. Ultimately, the findings lend support to human rights-based arguments on the state of affordable housing provision in Canada, in that the current nature of housing policies do not provide access to affordable housing for all those who are in need. Hence, I conclude with a call to reimagine systems that are designed to address housing affordability pressures with the goal of providing affordable housing for all those in need.
Photoacclimation strategies of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in response to high-light stress in stationary phase
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-09) Devkota, Shilpa; Durnford, Dion G.
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii can photoacclimate to excess light through short- and long-term mechanisms. During prolonged light stress, cell growth and division help reduce photosynthetic protein concentrations, establishing a new photosynthetic baseline. As nutrients deplete, division rate declines but persists during the declining growth phase (DGP), partially aiding photoacclimation through dilution and quenching mechanisms. This study explored C. reinhardtii’s protection from high-light stress during its stationary phase when cell division is limited. We monitored wildtype strain (CC125) over five days in stationary phase under low-light (LL) and high-light (HL) conditions. Both showed chlorophyll decline, signifying senescence, with HL cells declining faster. HL-exposed cells resumed growth after two days, likely due to metabolite availability from photosynthetic complex turnover. We also found that the npq4 mutant (CC4614), lacking LHCSR3, survived HL without significant NPQ induction, suggesting alternative survival mechanisms. These findings demonstrate how C. reinhardtii manages high light during stationary phases to maximize longevity.
Tulip bulbs and maple leaves: 1st Canadian Corp veterans’ memories of the Second World War from Sicily to the Netherlands
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Smith, Mackenzie; Windsor, Lee
In 1995, around the 50th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands, Dr. Agatha Bonga collected over one thousand questionnaires completed by Canadian Second World War veterans. Dr. Bonga died before she could utilize the data. Three decades later, this project re-opens this untouched, rare collection that reveals new perspectives on the known, but thinly told story about the end of Canada’s Second World War. The questionnaire responses contained in the collection examine veterans’ prewar lives, their wartime service, and their postwar transitions. This thesis examines a sample of 336 questionnaire responses completed by 1st Canadian Corps veterans who fought in Italy and in the 1945 Liberation Campaign in the Netherlands. These questionnaire responses from middle and lower ranking Canadian Army veterans corroborate, nuance, and at times challenge Canadian historical writing, especially regarding the spring 1945 Liberation Campaign, the sudden shift from war to peace, and post-war veterans’ lives.
Effects of early intervention social enrichment on emotion and affiliative behaviour of cats in an animal shelter
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) White, Jennifer; Forbes, Graham
Domestic cats (Felis catus) experience stress upon entering an animal shelter due to a change environment, and other factors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of human social enrichment on emotional and affiliative behaviour of cats within the first three days of admission to an animal shelter. Forty-six cats were admitted to an animal shelter in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, and were divided into two groups, enriched and control. Cats in the enriched group participated in daily 7-minute petting sessions. Results indicate that enriched treatment cats displayed a 13% increase in the duration of affiliative behavior and were more content compared to control. Additionally, anxiety in all cats decreased over the three days with enriched cats showing a 2% greater trend towards decreasing time spent in an anxious state. Application of practical approaches to increase shelter cat sociability may increase interactive behaviours and improve adoption potential.
Can hatch time of the American Lobster (Homarus americanus) be accurately predicted using embryos raised detached from a female’s brood?
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Whipple, Mary L.; Rochette, Rémy
Hatch time affects the biotic and abiotic conditions experienced by larvae and, hence, their success. In Canada, hatch of American lobster (Homarus americanus) is challenging to directly monitor, because it occurs outside fishing seasons. An alternative to direct observation is the use of temperature-based functions of embryo development, although the large size of females limits the number of individuals that can simultaneously be housed in a lab to develop such functions. To address this constraint, I compared the development and hatch of embryos raised in the laboratory attached or detached from the brood of 28 female lobsters from the Bay of Fundy. No significant differences were found in mean hatch date, size at hatch, or development rate of attached versus detached embryos, indicating that embryos raised separated from a female’s brood can be used to accurately predict hatch time in American lobster, or study other aspects of their embryos’ development.
Evaluating additional genomic variants identified by a 52 gene panel used for identification of actionable mutations in non-squamous non-small cell lung cancers
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Varty, Kathleen Mary; Reiman, Tony
Lung cancer leads global cancer mortality. Much of North America now employs next-generation sequencing (NGS) for patient cancer mutational profiling. This approach identifies driver mutations, typically non-synonymous somatic alterations altering protein coding. Recent findings suggest clinical relevance of synonymous mutations, traditionally disregarded for not altering protein sequences. Yet, their prevalence and clinical implications remain underexplored. This study analyzes genomic data and clinical outcomes for non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer patients sequenced at the Saint John Regional Hospital in New Brunswick. Canada from January 2019 to January 2023. Nine possibly pathogenic synonymous variants are identified. Additionally, the clinical variant distribution and impact of an expanded gene panel are explored. This research underscores the potential significance of synonymous mutations in cancer and expands on the current knowledge base.
Designing breathing exercise technologies for health and wellness
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Tabor, Aaron; Bateman, Scott; Scheme, Erik
This doctoral research identifies design guidelines that can improve breathing exercise technologies – guidance and feedback systems that support breathing exercises. Specifically, the research demonstrates that two commonly employed Human Computer Interaction (HCI) design approaches for increasing user engagement (i.e., serious games) and decreasing attentional demand (i.e., peripheral information systems) can be used to promote breathing exercise technologies in a way that preserves exercise integrity and benefit. This is important because breathing exercises have a wide range of health and wellness benefits, and our designs may allow these benefits to be attained more fully and by a wider audience. Further, the research also contributes novel design artifacts and insights that will support the ongoing exploration of breathing exercise technologies. The findings may generalize to other design-focused research applications such as interventions for health and wellness, serious games for rehabilitation, and peripheral and ambient information systems.
A comparison of shoulder kinematics and neuromuscular activity in eleven patient transfer techniques
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Roudi, Elnaz; Albert, Wayne J.
Nurses face high rates of musculoskeletal disorders, mainly from patient handling. This study examined the biomechanical shoulder demands associated with eleven patient handing techniques from two New Brunswick programs: “Back in Form” and “All the Right Moves”. This study amid to determine if significant differences existed across techniques to inform a new patient handling program for the New Brunswick acute care system. Twenty-six nursing students were trained and performed the techniques on a patient-actor, with a second caregiver for two-person tasks. Biomechanical and neuromuscular demands were recorded using electromyography, motion capture, a dynamometer, and a Borg scale. Statistical analysis involved repeated measures ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc analysis for significant findings. Our study indicates that both programs have similar outcomes, with shoulder muscle activity staying below 20% MVC. Some techniques showed lower muscle activity depending on the repositioning direction. While shoulder flexion over 60° is usually a WMSD risk, neuromuscular demands were minimal.
External technology sourcing and the dark side of open innovation
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Purdy, Lauren; Watson, Barry
Firms in high-technology industries face a complex set of challenges to innovate successfully and continuously, to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. At the top of this list of challenges lies the choice firms must make regarding project sourcing in their pursuit of innovation. This research makes a significant and novel contribution to this discourse and examines the sourcing decision in the context of new product development. Specifically, we apply a project-level typology along the dimensions of new R&D project source and project familiarity. Drawing from transaction cost economics and knowledge-based view theories, we empirically test our theoretically-developed hypotheses on a dataset of 2,971 biopharmaceutical R&D projects. Results from these analyses show that both R&D project source and project familiarity have significant direct effects on focal project performance outcomes. We also determine that focal project familiarity has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between project source and performance outcome.
Memory management techniques for dynamic languages
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Nanjekye, Joannah; Bremner, David
Garbage collection as a field requires well-documented and reusable techniques as well as considerations for the design abstractions of programming languages. This dissertation focuses on dynamically-typed languages, whose design warrants specific studies and optimizations. The first theme of the dissertation is the use of the Eclipse OMR framework for the correct, portable, and language-independent implementation of high performing garbage collectors for the RPython Meta-tracing-JIT-based dynamic languages. We extend the use of the framework-based garbage collectors to study the garbage collection cost for the same dynamic languages, highlighting the trade-off in performance between JIT tracing and garbage collection and thereby proposing a novel optimal JIT trace sizing solution. We further address two problems related to the collection resizing and boxing overhead for dynamic languages. We propose a calling context aware collection presizing technique for the former and present type-based stores, a novel memory layout to optimize type polymorphism in collection data structures for the latter. Dynamic languages often also provide foreign function interfaces; the Python language has a C API but challenges of pointer stability, lifetime complexity and memory model compatibility continue to receive little attention in the research community. We propose a garbage collection friendly Python FFI, we call CyStck, that combines a stack and light-weight handles along with migration tooling for extensions.
Saltwater Sovereigns to Land-Locked Subjects: The European and Colonial takeover of Indigenous maritime space in New England and Atlantic Canada, 1550-1755
(University of New Brunswick, 2020-01) Chaves, Kelly K.; Milner, J. Marc; Waite, Gary
Native Americans living along North America’s Atlantic coastline had always been maritime people. Before Europeans arrived on the continent, Indigenous mariners fished and whaled in their territorial waters. When European explorers appeared, Native seafarers met the newcomers not on the “in-between space” of a sand strewn beach, but as maritime equals paddling in their ocean-going canoes towards the anchored carracks in their harbours. Native Americans’ maritime capabilities astonished Europeans and challenged their long-held beliefs of oceanic superiority. As colonization progressed, English settlers, imbued with nationalistic rhetoric proclaiming themselves to be “sovereigns of the seas,” quashed southern New England’s Indigenous maritime resistance against their settlements through a series of wars and coastal land grabs that dispossessed Native peoples from their coastal lands and adjoining territorial waters. English colonizers allowed subjugated Indigenous populations to re-integrate into the maritime world in specific industries, which controlled and coerced Indigenous mariners to work for colonial merchants through debt peonage. Yet, not all Indigenous seafarers surrendered their autonomy. In the French held lands of Acadia and eastern Maine, Wabanaki mariners fought New Englanders’ attempts to empty their territorial waters of pelagic and demersal creatures and to expand colonial fishing settlements into their homelands by attacking colonial fishing vessels. An imperial geopolitical struggle between Britain and France for control of the fishery resulted in the British conquest of downeast New England and Acadia (renamed Nova Scotia) in 1713. Indigenous people, incensed by the handover of their traditional spaces from one European government to another, exerted their regional maritime power from 1715 to 1726 to counter the expanding presence of Englishmen and New Englanders in Maine and Nova Scotian lands and waters. A series of autonomous Indigenous maritime wars threatened the destruction of New England’s fishing fleets and caused an uproar in the British colonies. Indigenous maritime resistance ended only when British forces attacked Native communities on land. Subsequent treaty negotiations favored British expansion into the Indigenous maritime environment and legally extended English sovereignty over Native peoples in Maine and Nova Scotia, effectively drowning Native Americans’ maritime autonomy beneath the ocean’s waves.
Effect of core fill timing on shear capacity in prestressed hollow core concrete slabs
(University of New Brunswick, 2022-10) Quinlan, Taylor; Lloyd, Alan
Precast Prestressed hollow core concrete slabs are commonly used in the construction industry to reduce build times and weight over cast-in-place structures. These members are extruded on a casting bed, therefore shear reinforcement is not possible. In high shear areas the prestress level drops as it approaches the member end, commonly referred to as transfer length. In this region, it is common practice to fill the void in the slab to increase the shear capacity. This thesis discusses how void fill timing can affect the shear capacity of the section, and the effective transfer length. It also explores methods to accurately measure the transfer length within this region and possible methodologies to increase the shear capacity.
Dewatering of aquaculture sludge by centrifugation
(University of New Brunswick, 2023-06) Mann, Alex; Couturier, Michel
Currently, aquaculture sludge is shipped offsite for disposal. The disposal cost is directly proportional to the weight of the sludge, which typically has a solids content between 3 to 10 wt.% solids. This has created a strong incentive to remove water from aquaculture sludge in order to reduce its weight and one method to achieve this is centrifugation. When using a centrifuge, it was determined that aquaculture sludge can be dewatered to 19.3 ± 0.7 wt.% solids. The addition of dewatering aids such as coagulants, flocculants, and sawdust proved to be ineffective at further decreasing the water content in the sludge. Incineration was also investigated as an alternative disposal method for dewatered sludge. The higher heating value of aquaculture sludge was determined the be 16.3 ± 0.2 kJ/g of dry solids and thermodynamic calculations show that sludge must be at least 31 wt.% solids for self-sustained combustion at 800°C.
The importance of human connection in consultant satisfaction at an IT staffing company
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-03) Harvey, Lauren; Foord, David
This thesis explores the impact of human connection on the satisfaction of Information Technology (IT) consultants at staffing firms. The study applies a qualitative methodology and in vivo and descriptive coding methods to examine two years of consultant survey data from a large IT staffing firm. Using classic human behavioural theories as a basis for understanding and prioritizing consultant needs, this study interprets the coding results and offer suggestions for providing a consultant care program. The research findings show that communication, support, and personal connection are important components in consultant satisfaction. In a highly competitive and growing industry, consulting firms must create ways to stay ahead of the competition and stand out in their field. A consultant care program that provides the basics of consultant service and support will position themselves to be more competitive in attracting and retaining top talent.
An adversarial attack framework for deep learning-based NIDS
(University of New Brunswick, 2023-12) Mohammadian, Hesamodin; Ghorbani, Ali A.; Lashkari, Arash Habibi
Intrusion detection systems are essential to any cybersecurity architecture, as they play a critical role in defending networks against various security threats. In recent years, deep neural networks have demonstrated remarkable performance in numerous machine learning tasks, including intrusion detection. However, it has been observed that deep learning models are highly susceptible to a wide range of attacks during both the training and testing phases. These attacks can compromise the privacy and security of deep learning models, such as model inversion, membership inference, poisoning, and evasion attacks. Numerous studies have been conducted to understand and mitigate these attacks to propose more efficient techniques with higher success rates and accuracy in various tasks utilizing deep learning models, such as image classification, face recognition, network intrusion detection, and healthcare applications. Despite the considerable efforts in this area, the network domain still lacks sufficient attention to these attacks and vulnerabilities. This thesis aims to address this gap by proposing a framework for adversarial attacks against network intrusion detection systems. The proposed framework focuses on both poisoning and evasion attacks. For poisoning, we present a label flipping-based attack, and for evasion, we propose two attacks: FGSM-based and saliency map-based attacks. These attacks are designed by considering the distinct characteristics of network data and flows. Furthermore, we introduce an evaluation model for the evasion attack based on several carefully selected criteria. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, we utilize three network datasets that cover a wide range of network attack categories: CIC-IDS2017, CIC-IDS2018, and CIC-UNSW. Through extensive evaluations and analysis, we demonstrate that the proposed methods are highly effective against deep learning-based NIDS and can significantly degrade their performance. With the proposed evasion attacks, we show that each feature has a varying impact on the adversarial sample generation process, and it is possible to execute a successful attack even with a few features involved. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to network intrusion detection by providing novel and effective approaches for adversarial attacks, shedding light on the vulnerabilities of deep learning-based NIDS, and emphasizing the importance of enhancing their robustness to such attacks.
Their Imperceptible Parts: Storytelling, Animal Agriculture, and Uncanny Kin
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) MacKenzie-Dale, Britt; Effinger, Elizabeth; Jarman, Mark Anthony
Industrial animal agriculture is heavily implicated in the warming of our planet and, as such, multispecies stories in the Anthropocene are increasingly urgent. Their Imperceptible Parts: Storytelling, Animal Agriculture, and Uncanny Kin is a creative writing dissertation consisting of a six-part short story collection with a critical introduction. The ecoGothic short story collection features farmed animals and the humans (disproportionally people of colour, refugees, undocumented immigrants, and members of the working class) who labour alongside them and traces the ways in which these industrial farming systems exploit vulnerable bodies. Conceptually framing these stories is the critical introduction that explores three key lines of thought that interrogate the human-animal relationship in the Anthropocene. First, I tarry with the fraught and historically contingent “fantasy figure of the human” (Wolfe 45), revealing that those considered nonhuman have always haunted hegemonic and dominant cultural narratives. Second, I explore how storytelling can be an affective methodology to interrogate the human-nonhuman dichotomy as inherently unstable, violent, and porous. I offer that the ecoGothic genre helps elucidate the real-world horrors that both humans and animals face within modern meat production and becomes a useful craft tool to investigate the multispecies intimacies, ontological slippages, and horrific corporeal demands of these haunted sites. Finally, drawing upon scholars working at the nexus of critical animal studies and labour studies, I explore how thinking of farmed animals as labourers can challenge human exceptionalism. With a focus on the affective force and transformative power of fiction, Their Imperceptible Parts suggests that literature can be a tool to probe the ideologies and impacts of intensive animal farming and bring to light the stories of those bodies that otherwise escape notice.
Learners or earners? Interviews with international students in Canada on navigating student-worker mobility pathways
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) Merriam, Deanna; Jeffrey, Leslie
This thesis explores the lived experiences of international students in Canada, examining the impacts and outcomes of Canada’s International Student Program (ISP) that positions students as not only educational participants but also flexible economic assets. Through a brief review of international student policy developments, it is argued that these changes reflect a deliberate effort to commodify international students' labor to meet Canadian labor market demands. The thesis also draws on migration literature to highlight the exploitative risks inherent in foreign labor pathways, applying these concerns to the International Student Program. Through the use of qualitative semi-structured interviews with international students and support professionals, this study reveals the challenges students face under these policies including permit or program navigation, financial instability, and most notably adverse impacts on well-being. This study highlights the complex relationship between Canada’s various mobility programs and notes the benefits of utilizing qualitative methodologies in researching program outcomes.
Trauma in NICU nurses: A grounded theory study
(University of New Brunswick, 2024-08) McKim, Ashley; Taylor, Petrea
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is a high stress, high stakes environment where the sickest and smallest patients receive care. This advocacy for vulnerable patients and everyday moral dilemmas means that NICU nurses are at high risk of experiencing workplace trauma. The purpose of this study is to explore the research question “How do NICU nurses at The Moncton Hospital manage their self-identified trauma in the context of the workplace?” I recruited eight nurses who are or have worked in The Moncton Hospital NICU and self-identify as having experienced occupational trauma. Data collection included semi-structured interviews. The data was coded using the Grounded Theory constant comparative approach, with the end goal of forming a mid-range theory. It is anticipated that findings will facilitate the implementation of interventions to support nurses to manage their trauma experiences.

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