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Recent Submissions
Royal Fish, Sea Monsters, and the Great Leviathan: Whales in Seventeenth Century England
(2025-04-04) Martens-Oberwelland, Emily; Not Applicable; Master of Arts; Department of History; Not Applicable; n/a; Not Applicable; Jerry Bannister; Justin Roberts; Krista Kesselring
The relationship between humans and whales has been transforming for centuries. This thesis aims to uncover the multi-faceted way in which whales were perceived in seventeenth-century England. The early modern English had varying and sometimes conflicting views of whales, considering them “royal fish,” useful commodities, and preternatural beings. This thesis analyzes the role whales played in legal disputes – particularly in the Crown’s claim to the foreshore, – investigates mariners’ shifting attitudes towards whales during the development of early English whaling, and explores the differing reactions of people ashore to stranded whales. What it reveals is that the tie between humans and whales has always been far more complex and dynamic than a simple predator-prey interaction. This thesis seeks to reinsert whales into our understanding of early modern England, while providing a lens through which we can reevaluate our past and current relationship with these “wonderous” marine mammals.
SUPPORTING DONORS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE POWERS OF ATTORNEY REGIME IN NOVA SCOTIA
(2025-04-02) Burns, Dianna; Not Applicable; Master of Laws; Faculty of Law; Received; n/a; No; DR. NIKI KIEPEK; DR. RICHARD DEVLIN; PROF. SHEILA WILDEMAN
This thesis is an exploration of supported decision-making in relation to finances and property. Specifically, it explores whether educational resources addressing Nova Scotia’s recently-reformed Powers of Attorney Act might help foster a culture of supported decision-making in the province. My analysis confirms that providing education and resources to the public increases confidence and understanding of the fiduciary duties engaged by powers of attorney, particularly enduring powers of attorney. Drawing on the research data, I provide resource materials for civil society and government to increase access to justice and advance a shift in culture toward supported decision-making by way of Nova Scotia’s power of attorney regime, and discuss recommendations to be undertaken in order to increase autonomy of individuals in financial and property decision-making contexts.
Evaluating Metabolite Profiles of Protein Hydrolysates for Cell Culture Media Applications
(2025-03-25) Combe, Michelle; No; Doctor of Philosophy; Department of Process Engineering and Applied Science; Not Applicable; Michael Butler; Yes; Alison Scott; Aarnoud van der Spoel; Stanislav Sokolenko
Cell culture media development is an ongoing endeavour across biopharmaceutical and cultivated meat industries, often accounting for the majority of production costs. To relieve these costs, protein hydrolysates may be used as a cost-effective additive that provides a variety of beneficial nutrients to cell culture media. However, relatively unknown compositions and potential batch-to-batch variability add levels of uncertainty to the overall reproducibility of cell cultures when hydrolysates are introduced. To address this, this work performs a comprehensive analysis of hydrolysate products — encompassing four of the five non-animal derived sources and a variety of yeast products available through Kerry Group — to determine their composition via metabolomics and their impact on cell cultures. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics was able to establish a baseline composition of small metabolites within hydrolysates, identifying significant differences between hydrolysate products. On the other hand, batch-to-batch variance was identified as relatively low, where select metabolites account for the majority of the variability within any given product. These trends were also observed in targeted mass spectrometry (MS) metabolomic data, which compared 21 metabolites consistent to both methods. These comparisons further showcased the benefits of MS sensitivity, with greater consistency in identifying metabolites and overall lower coefficients of variance, highlighting the benefits of using multiple methods for characterization. To evaluate the product differences and low batch variance observed using metabolomics, hydrolysate effects were analysed in mixture design-of-experiments and within various culture media. In general, plant hydrolysates observed positive effects on cell growth when in combination, where cotton and wheat together or Hy-Yest™ 466 alone were the highest performing hydrolysates overall. While the hydrolysates fully replaced serum in classical media, which was otherwise unable to support cell growth, they inhibited overall growth when used in undisclosed commercial media, indicating an excess of nutrients and underscoring the importance of known media compositions. Furthermore, despite low metabolomic variance, significant differences in cell density were observed when comparing cell cultures with different yeast hydrolysate batches. This work serves as a basis for hydrolysate characterization, aiming to address perceived challenges in hydrolysate use to support further development in cost-effective cell culture media.
Middle-earth-on-Earth: How and Why People Use Fantasy Film and Literature to Give Meaning to Real World Places
(2025-04-04) Grek Martin, Jennifer; Not Applicable; Doctor of Philosophy; Interdisciplinary PhD Programme; Not Applicable; Dr. Stijn Lewis Reijnders; Not Applicable; Dr. Kathy Cawsey; Dr. Keith Lawson; Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray; Dr. Gail Eskes
What happens when we recall a Fantastical 'Other World' through our interactions with the Real World? For some Tolkien fans, this recollection happens in a variety of Real World places: natural and urban, iconic and mundane and, for a select group, they are compelled to describe this experience by posting about it online. To understand why and how this 'Middle-earth-on-Earth' experience happens, I assembled textual and photographic records from Flickr and analyzed them through qualitative, quantitative, and geospatial means. Through this research, I learned that when Tolkien fans post photographs of Middle-earth-on-Earth on the social media site Flickr they are communicating a personal relationship with two Worlds: the Real World and a Fantastical Other World. Perceptions of both worlds are shaped by a person's experiences, memories, and imaginings, though certain essential physical and aesthetic qualities of the Other World place become points of contact that allow affective responses and mythic roles to be assigned to Real World places. Thus, the Real World place becomes enchanted as a 'place of mine' and the Other World place becomes grounded in all the senses and, for a time, habitable. In this way, Other Worlds shape our understanding and interactions with the Real World and, through a kind of escape, renewal, recovery process (ERR), allow us to re-enchant ourselves.
Effects of Pre-Transplant Hemodialysis Timing on Post Kidney Transplant Outcomes
(2025-04-03) Thanamayooran, Aran; Not Applicable; Master of Science; Department of Community Health & Epidemiology; Received; n/a; Not Applicable; Pantelis Andreou; Amanda Vinson; Leah Cahill; Karthik Tennankore
Background: For kidney transplant patients on hemodialysis there is little evidence examining how timing of individual hemodialysis sessions prior to kidney transplant may affect short and long-term post-transplant outcomes.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study of hemodialysis patients who received a kidney transplantation from 2006-2020, (n=661), was conducted using the Nova Scotia Health Multi-Organ Transplant Program’s Transplant Data Repository, which includes all transplant recipients from the Atlantic Canada provinces. The primary outcome of the study was delayed graft function, with secondary outcomes of transplant graft failure, length of stay, perioperative hypotension, postoperative hypotension. Outcomes were analyzed using either multivariable logistic regression or multivariable Fine and Gray regression.
Results: The primary outcome of delayed graft function had an odds ratio of 0.78 (95% confidence intervals. 0.47-1.28) when comparing hemodialysis ≥1 day before transplant to hemodialysis the same day as transplant. Similarly, no significant relationship was seen between hemodialysis timing and secondary outcomes.
A geometric approach to the analysis of black holes and spacetime invariants
(2025-04-01) Layden, Nicholas; Yes; Doctor of Philosophy; Department of Mathematics & Statistics - Math Division; Not Applicable; Valerio Faraoni; Yes; Robert van den Hoogen; Theodore Kolokolnikov; Alan Coley
The application of geometric techniques for the problem of characterizing spacetimes is explored for a number of topics. We examine the properties of black holes through a geometric definition based on curvature invariants, and explore the nature of such special objects. Through applications of the Cartan-Karlhede algorithm for determining the local equivalence of spacetimes, we prescribe and explore methods of discussing surfaces such as black hole horizons and photon surfaces in Einstein's theory of general relativity, black holes in alternative theories of gravity such as teleparallel and Brans-Dicke theory, and the occurrence of naked singularities in such theories. In addition to the analytical exploration of these topics, a numerical application is given and discussed, displaying the usefulness of the invariant characterization and Cartan scalars in numerical problems. The emphasis of this thesis is on the application of frame methods of analyzing spacetimes in theories of gravity, and through them developing invariant definitions of special surfaces in these spacetimes.