Retrospective Theses and Dissertations (prior to 2013)

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Open Access
A Close Look at the Hydrolytic Mechanism of OXA-58, a Class D β-Lactamase from Acinetobacter baumannii
(2012-04-25) Amini, Kaveh
OXA-58 enzyme from Acinetobacter baumannii is a carbepenm-hydrolyzing class-D β-lactamase which uses a carbamylated lysine to activate the nucleophilic serine used for β-lactam hydrolysis. The deacylating water molecule approaches the acylenzyme intermediate formed between the enzyme and the β-lactam from the α-face. According to our findings, OXA-58 uses the same catalytic machinery observed in class D β-lactamases such as OXA-10. Comparison of active site shape in OXA-58, OXA-24 and OXA-48 with the OXA-10 β-lactamase suggests that these carbapenem-hydrolyzing class D β-lactamases have gained the capability of hydrolyzing imipenem, an important carbapenem in clinical use, by slight structural changes in the active site. Also, investigation of the kinetics of β-lactam hydrolysis by Phen113A, Phen114A, Met225A, Phen113Tyr, Phen114l1e and Met225Thr shows that penicillin G is hydrolyzed better than amoxicillin and ampicillin which are hydrolyzed with comparable catalytic efficiencies. Carbenicillin was the poorest substrate.
Open Access
A Collection and Re-creation of Bahamian Traditional Dances
(1992-10-01) Johnson, Roderick Theophilus
This research project provides a collection and re-creation of eleven traditional Bahamian dances. Since the early eighteenth century,Bahamian folk dancing has been an integral part of the native's social life and culture and has been heavily influenced by three cultural groups: African, American and British. People from these three cultures were the first immigrants to the island and their folk dances form the underlying structural base of the Bahamian folk dance tradition. Eventually these cultural elements were synthesised into a distinctive Bahamian folk style. In comparison to the amount of traditional dance information available from other Caribbean countries, the documentation on Bahamian folk dance tradition is sketchy at best. Adding to the lack of documentation is a continued decline in the spontaneous practice and cultural performances of these dances, plus little or no regular instruction to allow for the dances' survival in the culture. A sad consequence of cultural change is the loss or distortion of folk art. This is the present condition of the majority of traditional Bahamian folk dances. New trends in music as well as increased urbanization are causing many Bahamians to ignore or abandon their culture and heritage and as a result the dances which were once an important part of Bahamian society are now dying out. The awareness of the present condition of the dances has given me the necessary incentive to study ,examine and document the Bahamian Folk dance tradition. Central to this research project are two documentary video tape recordings of the Bahamian traditional dances. These tapes provide: necessary historical background,a step by step introduction to Bahamian dance, and important clues to the origins of them. The first tape explores the social,historical and cultural framework from which the Bahamian traditional dances have evolved. The second tape continues with a careful examination and documentation of each of the dances that will enable the viewer to actually recreate them and thus gain an even deeper understanding of the Bahamian folk style. I chose to use the medium of video through which to present my research because of its ability to capture the dances in a way that writing could not. Recording the dances on video allowed for the documentation of each dance as a whole entity in that the mannerisms, gestures, behaviour and steps were simultaneously recorded and preserved. As each dance has experienced a continued erosion of tradition at the hands of progress and increased modernization of the Bahamas,the video format has allowed me to record and thus preserve each dance before it is lost entirely.
Open Access
Corporate law, pension law and the transformative potential of pension fund investment activism
(2002-07) Kodar, Freya; Condon, Mary
Pension funds, the funds held in trust to support occupational pension plans, represent significant funds of capital. Together with other institutional investors such as mutual funds and hedge funds they have become important actors in financial markets - nationally and internationally. They have significant holdings in national and transnational corporations. They are also deeply implicated in the financial instability of global financial markets, and free market globalization. In the past decade some members of the labour movement have sought to have more active involvement in pension fund investment decision-making. They have seen this involvement as a strategy for influencing corporate management and practice, and for encouraging productivity, local and regional development and long-term growth and sustainability. More radically, they have seen it as a means to create new conceptions of ''value" that include factors other than monetary return, and to transform capital by gaining greater social and democratic control over it. They have pursued strategies such as advocating for greater representation on pension plan boards of trustees or investment advisory committees, shareholder activism including proxy voting, investment screening and economically targeted or community investing. This thesis assesses these strategies within the Canadian context and looks at their transformative potential in light of pension law and corporate law principles and practice. It argues that the current strategies of pension fund activists, even if extended to other types of investors - individuals and institutional - are not likely to lead to more democratic and social systems of corporate regulation. It also suggests that pension fund activists have not fully explored the possibilities created by the fact that pension funds have many ''owners" and "beneficiaries" - legal or otherwise. Nor have their strategies adequately considered the suggestion that the uncertainties of corporate law make completing the separation of the corporation from the shareholder, and creating democratic and social systems of corporate regulation, a more appropriate and meaningful political project. In short, they have not challenged the limitations of pension law and corporate law with strategies that recognize the corporation and markets as social institutions that should be democratically and socially regulated. One avenue for doing this appears to be through utilizing the public pension system, particularly by expanding a funded public pension system, and democratizing the fund investment decision-making process.
Open Access
Cuban Piano Music: Contradanza
(2009-10-21) del Monte-Escalante, Glenda
This work is based on research, analysis, studies and performance of Cuban concert piano music. The aim of the paper is to illustrate the historical development of this music from the 19th Century repertoire of contradanzas. This project will involve a paper in support of a recital. It is of great interest to me as a pianist, composer, educator and researcher to promote awareness of such an important part of Cuban music culture, its piano music repertoire and some of its most central composers. This repertoire represents a continuous tradition of Cuban Piano Music dating from the early nineteenth century. It has its origins in England, Spain and France, while its rhythm and syncopated style derive from Africa. In 1871 French colonists were fleeing from Haiti’s slave rebellion. When these Haitians arrived in Cuba they also brought their cultural traditions, in particular the Contredanse. Typical of this music is its consistent binary approach to form and its variously modified tango (“habanera”) rhythm. This rhythm is notated in at least three different ways, which suggests that there is more than one way to express the buoyancy or special lift so essential to this music. Generally, this repertoire has been considered to underlie both classical and popular music in Cuba and to have significantly influenced other music outside of Cuba as well. Given its roots in Spanish musical folklore and its general use of African rhythms, Cuban piano music is an important part of the music history of Cuba. However, it has been relatively neglected by historians, especially in the English language. These Cuban danzas are the source of the rhythm known as Habanera, and they are a result of the fusion of wide and various musical traditions which led to the development of a national expression and “Cuban” identity.
Open Access
French-Canadian newspapers and imperial defence 1809-1914
(York University, 1967) Laxer, James
Open Access
Mesoscale Boundaries and Storm Development in Southwestern Ontario During Elbow 2001
(2012-10) Alexander, Lisa Susan; Taylor, Peter
The Effects of Lake Breezes on Weather (ELBOW) 2001 project was conducted in Southwestern Ontario, during summer 2001. Project goals included: understanding how lake breezes interact with one another, other mesoscale boundaries and synoptic fronts, understanding how lake breezes affect storm development, and helping to improve regional forecasts by transferring findings to forecasters. Radar, Satellite, Mesonet and Integrated (considering all data sets) analyses were each used to identify the mesoscale boundaries that occurred during the study period. A contingency table approach, for lake breeze occurrence, was used to evaluate each of the analyses against a Final 'Truth' Set. Findings showed that the Integrated analysis performed the best. Advantages and drawbacks of each analysis became apparent. Evaluation of the analyses was also done by studying the in land penetration distances of the lake breeze fronts. This revealed that most the analyses had good correlation to the Final 'Truth' Set. The Mesonet analysis was the least accurate for pinpointing lake breeze fronts, due to lack of information between surface stations. The boundary analysis showed that lake breeze fronts, originating from one or more of the surrounding lakes, occurred in the study area on 73 out of 86 days, or 85% of the days (for 1800 UTC). Exeter radar data (CAPPI and MAXR) were run through URP cell identification and tracking algorithms. The locations of storm cells, when they reached a 40 dBZ level, were measured relative to the closest boundary. Considering study days without warm front influence, 70.4% of the 40 dBZ CAPPI cell initiations and 68.5% of the 40 dBZ MAXR cell initiations occurred at a distance of 20 km or less from a boundary. Cell distribution plots were created to show the locations of the 40 dBZ cell initiations in front or behind a specified boundary type or boundary classification. Nowcasting techniques considering cumulus cloud development and Lifted Index values in the 'lifting zone' of the boundary, the convergence strength and updraft orientation along the boundary, and the boundary relative cell speed, were utilized in case studies. Reasons for the development, or the lack thereof, became apparent in cases presented.
Open Access
Multiple acts of birding: the Education, ethics and ontology of bird watching in Ontario
(2010-12-08T02:56:06Z) Watson, Gavan Peter Longley
While bird watching has captured the attention of those interested in fostering an experiential connection to the more-than-human, research conducted to date often assumes birding to be a heterogeneous act. As an example of free-choice learning, this work positions birding as a kind of environmental education, thus opening this popular activity to analysis missing from the literature thus far. Rather than a singular act, this investigation sees birding as a multiple, ontological object. As a result, the practices of field birding, backyard birding and bird rescue were studied with the goal of describing the relationship between practices and birders’ perspectives of and relationships with wild birds. Influenced by actor-network theory, a method assemblage was developed using multiple sources of data, including: semi-structured interviews analysed using a modified grounded theory approach; field journals analysed with a naturalist autoethnography lens; and photographs analysed using a spatially and personally contextualized approach. This research shows that birding often starts with a curious person observing a bird’s presence and then trying to identify the species. While awareness and knowledge of natural phenomena can assist in the identification of a bird, when the observation of an individual becomes a record of a species the act of identification marks a reductive moment between birders and birds. Ornithology, technology and birding are deeply intertwined. Yet, their influence on practice often goes unrecognized. In the emergent move to digital objects in birding, images, rather than birds, risk becoming the epistemological object. The influence of place on the construction of birds’ visibility and value is investigated. As a result of the lens of home place, birds in the backyard are rendered differently than in the field, with some included in backyard birder’s social sphere. Bird rescuers enact yet another relationship with birds, one where care is the primary concern and a focus on identification to species falls to the periphery. Ultimately, as a counter to instrumental and anthropocentric constructions of nature fostered by certain enactments of birding, reflexive birding is offered as an example of practice, which promises to foster awareness of birders’ connections to the deeply material lives of birds.
Open Access
The significance of corporeal factors and choreographic rhythms in Jamaican popular music between 1957--1981 (Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae), with an historical and critical survey of all relevant literature dealing with Jamaican folk, religious and popular musics and dance
(York University, 2007) McCarthy, Leonard Joseph
Most studies of Jamaican Popular Music (JPM)--Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae--only discuss sonic structures as isolated phenomena, with little consideration of correlationships between JPM sonic patterns and those of indigenous Jamaican Folk and Religious Music (JFRM). Most also pay insufficient attention to the role of corporeality in the characteristics, development and performance practices of Jamaican music. This study is in two parts. (1) An historical and critical survey of all relevant literature dealing with JPM and JFRM which examines the applicability of this work to this study's thesis, with new concepts and theories introduced where appropriate. A compendium structure organizes information by historical influences, genre, musicological characteristics, movement orientations and theoretical concerns, with comprehensive citations for each subsection. (2) Part Two consists of original musicological and movement analysis of 878 video performances by 299 JPM and JFRM artists. This research identifies particular couplings of sound and movement patterns, which Agawu (2003) calls choreographic rhythms (CRs). From these findings, this study's thesis emerges in four main points: (1) JPM and JFRM performers share similar, uniquely Jamaican CRs, which appear to account for the idiosyncratic rhythmic feel of most Jamaican music. (2) Jamaican CRs are rooted in neo-African musical traditions, which are themselves rooted in West and Central African musics.(3) Jamaican musical traditions are transmitted/acquired primarily via mimesis. (4) Enactivist research 1 about music perception/cognition and cultural environments explains how growing up in particular cultures develops CRs which shape the musical understanding and performance practices of people within cultural communities. This research explains why people have difficulty perceiving and executing foreign CRs because they intuitively utilize their own indigenous CRs instead. By integrating the material surveyed in Part One with the findings in Part Two, it is concluded that proper understanding Jamaican music requires consideration of corporeal, sonic and other cultural factors as gestalt unities. It follows that this approach could benefit the study of any music. The final chapter features a concordance of topics and themes examined in the entire study which functions as an index. 1 Enactivism is a branch of cognitive science which has emerged since the early 1990s.
Open Access
The stylistic diversity of the concert saxophone
(York University, 2007-07) Rubinoff, Daniel I.
This thesis examines the sonic parameters and musical versatility of the concert saxophone. Invented in 1840, the instrument failed to become a regular member of the symphony orchestra, and is thus underrepresented in classical music. This researcher argues that the saxophone's unique sonic design makes it an effective contemporary instrument in a wide variety of genres. Specifically, the techniques of subtone, harmonics, and false fingerings are examined from both a performance and compositional perspective. Additionally, the instrument's resemblance to the human voice is documented. An examination of five original saxophone compositions highlights the instrument's flexibility as a solo instrument or as a member of an ensemble. This work adds to the number of original compositions for the saxophone and explores the reasons behind the instrument's success in contemporary music.

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