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Recent Submissions

Access status: Embargo ,
Integrated Adaptive Super-Twisting Sliding Mode and Variable Impedance Control for Collaborative Multi-Robot Manipulation
(2026-04-02) Wan, Lucas; Yes; Doctor of Philosophy; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Not Applicable; Dr. Yang Shi; Yes; Dr. Robert Bauer; Dr. Thomas Trappenberg; Dr. Ya-Jun Pan
Collaborative and cooperative robotic systems operating in unstructured environments require advanced control strategies that achieve robustness, flexibility, and safe physical interaction. Conventional control methods often struggle to guarantee stability and performance in multi-robot manipulation under disturbances, modelling errors, and dynamic interaction forces. This thesis proposes a unified control framework that integrates robust nonlinear control, adaptive gain tuning, and variable impedance regulation for scalable collaborative multi-manipulator systems. The framework is built around a proposed task-space sliding mode (SM) controller that uses unit quaternions for orientation tracking. To mitigate chattering and ensure finite-time convergence, nonsingular terminal and super-twisting sliding mode (STSM) techniques are employed. The research is organized into four successive studies that iteratively develop the proposed control framework. First, an admittance-based nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) controller is introduced for decentralized cooperative manipulation in simulation. Second, an adaptive task-space nonsingular terminal super-twisting sliding mode (NT-STSM) controller is experimentally validated on a 7-DOF Franka Emika manipulator, addressing practical challenges such as chattering, stable parameter tuning, and hardware implementation. Third, impedance control is integrated into the robust controller to form a super-twisting sliding-mode impedance (STSMI) controller, which is extended to multi-manipulator systems for coordinated motion and internal force regulation. Finally, an adaptive super-twisting sliding mode variable impedance control (STSM-VIC) method is proposed, providing real-time modulation of the virtual stiffness, damping, and inertia while ensuring the passivity through Lyapunov-based analysis. Comparative simulations and hardware experiments demonstrated that the proposed integrated approach significantly improves tracking accuracy, robustness, and interaction safety compared to conventional controllers. Overall, the results established a scalable and experimentally validated control strategy for reliable cooperative manipulation in real-world collaborative robotic systems.
Access status: Open Access ,
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Navigating China's Approach in the South China Sea from 2009 to 2024
(2026-04-01) Gong, Xinyu; No; Doctor of Philosophy; Department of Political Science; Not Applicable; Paul Evans; No; David Black; Ajay Parasram; Brian Bow
This dissertation investigates China’s strategic logic in the South China Sea from the late 2000s to the early 2020s. It challenges conventional theoretical prediction of "linear expansion" of a rising power by analyzing how Beijing calibrates maritime assertiveness while managing systemic risks. The research argues that China employs a pragmatic "push-and-pull" dynamic, a cycle of assertive expansion followed by tactical restraint. Through a comparative analysis of China’s interactions with Vietnam and the Philippines, the study also demonstrates China's strategic approach in the South China Sea: restraint toward Vietnam through institutionalized channels, and stronger unilateralism toward the Philippines, often followed by moderation under international pressure. These findings reveal a "two steps forward, one step back" trajectory aimed at consolidating regional influence without triggering unified resistance or direct conflict. Ultimately, the dissertation highlights that Beijing tests its power limits and recalibrates in response to external resistance.
Access status: Open Access ,
“Amplitude of human experience”: The relational wellbeing potential of shared reading
(2026-03-30) Brown, Alison; Not Applicable; Doctor of Philosophy; Interdisciplinary PhD Programme; Received; Dr. Paulette Rothbauer; Not Applicable; Dr. DeNel Rehberg Sedo; Dr. Marion Brown; Dr. Vivian Howard; Dr. Sandra Toze
Amid rising social fragmentation, loneliness, and pervasive inequities, practices that invite people to gather, listen, and imagine together carry renewed urgency. Shared reading – small groups convened to read aloud and discuss literature – is one such practice. This dissertation investigates the relational wellbeing potential of participation in shared reading and asks: what happens when people come together around a literary text, and how might those happenings enable participants to be, become, and stay well with one another? Guided by a transformative-relational paradigm, the research unfolds in two interwoven phases. Phase One, a scoping review and thematic synthesis of empirical studies and organizational reports, maps what is already known about the key elements (the literary text, facilitator, group, and atmosphere) and the relational processes (intersubjective engagement, expanded boundaries of self, collective wondering, and (in)articulation) of shared reading. Phase Two, a poetic inquiry rooted in conversations with shared reading participants, attends to the lived, affective textures of participation in shared reading. Participant-voiced poems, set alongside poems woven from theoretical companions, illuminate how the cultivated liminal space of shared reading, with the literary text at the center, engenders practices of recognition and listening otherwise (Lipari, 2009, within which expressions of relational wellbeing emerge. Together, these phases reveal shared reading as an assemblage of heterogeneous components, dynamically configured in ways that open possibilities for resonant relations of wellbeing. Relational wellbeing emerges not as an individual outcome but as a collective, contingent, ongoing process requiring attention to the infrastructures of resonance: the spaces, practices, and facilitators that allow people to encounter and respond to one another and the world with openness, curiosity, and care. This dissertation offers contributions to theory by extending and refining theories of resonance and relational wellbeing; to methodology through a layered inquiry that foregrounds relationality not only as an object of study but also as a mode of research; and to practice and policy by proposing insights to strengthen shared reading as a vital public practice for cultivating connection, attention, and care. This work gathers concepts, stories, and voices to hold open the relational possibilities that shared reading makes possible.
Access status: Embargo ,
Spilling More Ink than Blood: The Royal Navy and the Preservation of Britain’s Informal Empire in China, 1929-1939
(2026-03-29) Caswell, Liam; Not Applicable; Doctor of Philosophy; Department of History; Not Applicable; Dr. Aaron Windel; Not Applicable; Dr. Bill Sewell; Dr. Jerry Bannister; Dr. Ajay Parasram
This dissertation examines the Royal Navy as an agent of British diplomacy and imperialism in China between 1929-1939. Using archival records sourced from all echelons of the Royal Navy’s China Station, Britain’s government ministries, and other official and unofficial agents of British imperialism in the region, this work provides a new perspective from which to explore the nature of British policy in East Asia during a decade of regional instability and crises. Faced with challenges ranging from rampant piracy to violent Japanese imperial expansion, the China Station was tasked with preserving their nation’s empire in China during an era of professed liberal internationalism and severe strategic overstretch. Given these realities, China Station personnel found themselves relying less on material strength and coercion in favour of negotiation, diplomacy, and compromise with a myriad of geopolitical players cohabiting East Asia. British policymakers entered the 1930s with a sense of optimism – the rise of the Guomindang’s Nanjing regime having promised a unified and stable Chinese market for the British to influence and exploit. However, this optimism would not last long as continued Chinese regional instability disrupted British trade, while mounting Japanese continental aggression threatened to dismantle Britain’s informal empire entirely. Recognizing the China Station as “the principle military adviser to his Majesty’s Government” on the preservation of British lives and property in China, Whitehall gave that command a remarkable amount of operational autonomy with which to respond to events and challenges as they unfolded. With little recourse to force for want of material strength, the China Station collaborated with other regional state and non-state actors in disseminating defense responsibility and pursued a pragmatic diplomacy backed by little more than the waning prestige previously accumulated by the British Empire in the region. Through examining the China Station’s experience in the 1930s, one is given an impression of the possibilities and limitations of what can be achieved through local negotiation, compromise, and the invocation of prestige during a decade of global instability and transformation. Building on previous scholarly works concerning Foreign Office and Treasury initiatives aimed at the preservation of Britain’s informal imperial sphere during the 1930s, the work explores how China Station personnel – as the primary representatives of British military power in China –interpreted and executed their role as arbiters of Britain’s imperial and diplomatic policies in a region undergoing political, economic, and social evolution. Furthermore, the dissertation contributes to general studies of geostrategic policy by providing a case study regarding the adaptability of geographically peripheral naval forces in shifting their methods and doctrines when faced by material stringency amid a climate of regional and global instability.
Access status: Open Access ,
Indigenous Storytelling Traditions: Mapping Significant Areas for FSC Fisheries in the Bras d’Or Lake Using The Two-Eyed Seeing Approach
(2024-12) Joseph, Tamara-Lee
Fisheries have always been an important component of Mi’kmaq culture, livelihood, and food security as they provided sustenance for thousands of years. The Mi’kmaq People devoted centuries to developing fisheries management protocols based on such cultural significance. However, over time Western Science has dominated fisheries management in Canada through deliberate targeted efforts of colonialism. This shift reflects the tendency for Western frameworks, current research, and management methods to often overlook culturally significant marine areas, leading to misleading and incomplete fisheries data. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between Mi’kmaq Knowledge systems and Geographic Information System (GIS) using the Two-Eyed Seeing Approach. This research will provide valuable insights on how Indigenous Knowledge (IK) can be used in parallel with modern technology to better manage fisheries. Based on these gathered insights, this research will contribute to the development of protocols to improve Food, Social, and Ceremonial (FSC) fisheries management between the Mi’kmaq Nation and the Canadian government. A map of the Bras d’Or Lake, located in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, will be created to highlight the culturally significant areas using GIS layers provided by both Western and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. By including storytelling, legends, placenames, and other culturally significant knowledge systems as data layers and as a communicative tool, this study presents a Mi’kmaq legend coupled with academic referencing and mapping to braid the two perspectives together, further demonstrating how Two-Eyed Seeing can be effectively used in science. The objectives for this study are to finds ways to combine Indigenous Knowledge with Western Science using the Two-Eyed Seeing Approach to supplement research in fisheries, and determine current research gaps in knowledge and ethical data collection, using FSC fisheries to illustrate how both knowledge systems can improve science.
Access status: Open Access ,
Senate Minutes, 2026
(Dalhousie University, 2026) Dalhousie University;
The University Senate minutes contain information on faculty and program creation and modifications, academic schedules, admissions, affiliated institutions, alumni information, appointments, committees, faculties, biographical sketches of key members of the Dalhousie community and other information on administrative duties involving the Senate.