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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.
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Recent Submissions
An investigation of transition-informed classifier adaptation for myoelectric control
(University of New Brunswick, 2023-12) Meneley, Julia; MacIsaac, Dawn; Scheme, Erik
Myoelectric prostheses use pattern recognition of surface electromyography (SEMG) to interpret a user’s intent. Over time, changes in the SEMG worsen the usability of these prostheses, requiring cumbersome retraining. Adaptive learning, although able to update the classifier, suffers from mislabelling errors during unsupervised use. This study aimed to overcome this by investigating the impact of transitions between classes, often associated with elevated misclassification, on the adaptation process. Several adaptation techniques, some based on explicitly avoiding transitions and others based on leveraging awareness of transitions to improve decision stream labelling, were explored. Finally, these transition-informed adaptation techniques were tested on two datasets that included sequences of transitions between known classes. Results suggest that an awareness of transience in the SEMG can inform the data selection process and improve the labelling of unsupervised data for adaptation. A resulting LC-SSL technique yielded significant (p¡0.05) improvement to several offline classifier performance metrics.
Patrolling the medical margins: The hospital ship Strathcona III and community relocation in northern Newfoundland and Labrador, 1949-1974
(University of New Brunswick, 2023-12) Matchim, John R.H.; Mullally, Sasha
This dissertation explores the history of the Strathcona III (1964-1974), the last hospital ship built for the International Grenfell Association (IGA). The IGA was a philanthropic health care provider that operated in northern Newfoundland and Labrador between 1893 and 1981. To make its services more accessible to rural-remote fishing communities, the IGA developed a decentralized system of small hospitals, nursing stations and hospital ships. By revisiting a wide range of clinician autobiographies and other forms of life writing, analyzing clinical case records, and applying a spatial history analysis to the Strathcona III’s activities, this study shows that the ship was primarily built in response to the continuing high incidence of tuberculosis. Ultimately, this work links the Strathcona III’s health services to contemporaneous community relocation programs that sought to move people from small fishing communities to larger ‘growth centres.’ Faced with overcrowded housing, where tuberculosis flourished, and high unemployment, many relocated people returned to their old homes each summer to make a living from the fishery, leading the IGA to construct a new hospital ship that could accompany them.
This is not to say that the intentions of the state could not be coopted or subverted. While the Strathcona III was designed to conduct mass x-ray surveys for tuberculosis, coastal peoples were also able to access a range of other medical services. The ship provided a vital support to fishing peoples whose way of life was considered ‘backwards’ in a modern industrial economy. By continuing to fish from summer stations local people were able, at least indirectly, to influence IGA policy and address their particular needs.
Additionally, applying a circumpolar, historical framework to these activities connects the IGA to international trends. The emerging historiography of global health and the rise of ‘big medicine’ shows how economic ‘modernization’ programs, military buildups, and marine-based public health surveys in Canada were also occurring at the same time in many other parts of the circumpolar North Atlantic. Thus, interconnected projects of tuberculosis control and community relocation in northern Newfoundland and Labrador can be seen as parts of a larger set of global projects.
Building a global navy: U.S. naval logistics, 1775-1941
(University of New Brunswick, 2023-12) Klug, Jonathan P.; Milner, Marc; Windsor, Lee
By the end of World War II, the United States Navy (USN) was a juggernaut that had swept the Imperial Japanese Navy from the sea. While there are many reasons for this victory, one was the Japanese failure to account for naval logistics properly. Unfortunately, naval historians have made the same mistake concerning the USN. They have steadily paid less and less heed to naval logistics as World War II V-J Day inexorably slipped further back in time and memory. However, recent tensions between the United States and China have spurred renewed interest, which is appropriate given that any armed conflict would involve naval combat at the end of long sea lines of communication.
This dissertation demonstrates that naval logistics was the true indicator of the United States Navy’s ability to be a blue-water navy capable of projecting power globally and brings naval logistics back into the general historical discussion. The USN struggled to improve its logistics for seventeen decades, from its inception to the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The Pacific War would also be a harsh taskmaster, as there was much to learn about naval logistics in the hard crucible of war. However, the Navy had laid the intellectual foundation and created the necessary equipment to develop the massive wartime logistical system that would allow successful combat operations across thousands of miles of open ocean.
This dissertation demonstrates several key challenges inherent for a navy to operate globally. First, a transoceanic navy is expensive and has a long build lead time. Second, the Pacific Ocean is as vast today as it was in the 1940s, but today’s technology has “shrunk” the great ocean in the sense that it takes less time to traverse. Finally, although warships and the naval logistics systems necessary to support them continue to evolve, there are timeless aspects to waging transoceanic wars. Existing bases, advanced bases, and auxiliaries are essential for operational reach, endurance, and tempo, and they determine the success and persistence of early operations in war.
Modified cellulose filament as adsorbent for removal of methylene blue (MB) and copper ions (Cu2+)
(University of New Brunswick, 2023-12) Gyapong, Bright; Xiao, Huining
Rapid economic growth and industrialization have resulted in an exponential rise in the tainting of other elements by heavy metal ions (like Cu2+) and dye pollutants (such as MB). Concurrently, the global management of wood fibre residue has become a significant concern. Therefore, there is an urgent need to conduct a thorough investigation into the potential use of wood fibre residue to efficiently remove MB from water and Cu2+ from the soil. This research seeks to improve the effectiveness of wood cellulose as an adsorbent by amine-functionalizing cellulose filaments. Modified cellulose filaments were characterized using analytical techniques, including FTIR, TGA, and SEM. In conclusion, the amine-modified cellulose filaments are anticipated to demonstrate high efficacy in removing both MB and Cu2+, thus providing a plausible solution to reduce their environmental impact.
Value and values in relation to psychedelic substances and experiences
(University of New Brunswick, 2023-12) Foss, Jeremy; Galbo, Joseph; Weissman, Eric
The following is an interdisciplinary study of the uses of psychedelics for self-improvement, ritual and integrative social functions, medicinal relief of psychological and emotional trauma, and other mental health pathologies and illnesses.
There is a dual purpose to this study. The first is to deconstruct the stigma surrounding psychedelics to explore how they have been excluded as natural remedies from common narratives on treatment. Stigma effects the way in which the world views these substances, and as this research shows, influences how users interpret and value their experiences with them. The second purpose is to explicate the similarities and differences between three unique settings outlined for the study: Clinical, as in being used under the supervision of a professional clinician, Ceremonial or Ritualistic, as in ceremonies such as an Ayahuasca ceremony, and Recreational, as in use by people in social settings. The research identified specific protocols, defined as best practices by interviewees, for maximizing the impacts of psychedelic use in each of these discrete contexts.
Based on the first-hand experiences of users in these three settings, this thesis has proposed strategies for harm-reduction across all settings. This thesis informs current and future efforts to de-stigmatize psychedelics and promotes educating the public about their use. It contributes to harm-reduction approaches by demonstrating smart ways to manage psychedelic experiences for the purposes of enhancing mental health, reducing trauma and, for optimizing forms of self-improvement.