https://open.library.ubc.ca/search Custom RSS feed built using https://open.library.ubc.ca/search/advanced 60 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452402 The full abstract for this thesis is available in the body of the thesis, and will be available when the embargo expires. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452402 Fri, 01 May 2026 21:06:19 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/52966/items/1.0452401 This undergraduate student work is a product of a collaboration between the UBC SHARE Project, the Making Research Accessible initiative (MRAi), researchers, Dr. Kasim Husain, andthe students of MDIA 150 at UBC. This student's work has been reviewed by the lead author of the original item. Revisions provided by the lead author have been incorporated into thestudent work with support from the UBC Learning Exchange. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student research project/report and is not an official document of UBC. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/52966/items/1.0452401 Fri, 01 May 2026 16:01:22 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0448392 The full abstract for this thesis is available in the body of the thesis, and will be available when the embargo expires. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0448392 Fri, 01 May 2026 09:26:00 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452398 This thesis explores how South Korean primary school teachers exercise political agency when they are not allowed to express political opinions or participate in collective actions. Drawing on Foucauldian perspectives as interpreted by Stephen Ball and Santoro’s work on teachers’demoralization, this study constructs a theoretical framework that interprets teachers’ innerconflicts as an early manifestation of resistance and the emergence of political subjectivity. This study employs a qualitative design, using semi-structured interviews with six Korean primary teachers to examine how discourses shape teachers’ experiences and how teachers recount practices of negotiating and resisting dominant discourses. Findings demonstrate that teachers’ political agency becomes visible through tensions between discourse and practice. All participants reiterated the prevailing discourse that teachers have excessive responsibility, but are positioned as powerless because their opinions are often blocked by parents’ demands or school administrators’ opinions. In contrast, all participants also articulated practices that demonstrate their agency in four ways. First, political subjectivity emerged through collective action, particularly in response to the criminalization of teachers’ responsibilities and perceived ethical violations. Second, teachers illustrated their role as democratic actors by teaching democratic values to students, by creating spaces for students to share their opinions through classroom meetings or the students’ council. Third, several participants refused a politically neutral position and expressed their determination to speak out or sometimes participate in political actions, such as the President’s impeachment rallies or an environmental campaign with students. Fourth, teachers enacted micropolitical engagement through small and strategic actions, including speaking up in staff spaces, participating in petitions and online discussions even when such actions involved fear and risk. This thesis argues that teachers are not merely policy implementers; rather, they are political subjects with agency and who resist circulating discourses in various forms. This study contributes to scholarship by illustrating how micropolitical engagement is enacted when macropolitical engagement is restricted by strict educational policy, specifically focusing on teachers’ private conflicts between institutional demands and professional ethical values. Finally, it advocates protective mechanisms for teachers and broader spaces for teachers to speak out to establish a more democratic education system. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452398 Fri, 01 May 2026 09:05:11 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452397 Like all people trans people are assigned a gender at birth, but at some point trans people begin self-identifying as a different gender. Trans people also face a society that frequently invalidates their gender identities and insists that they cannot be the genders they self-identify as. This dissertation argues that when trans people begin to self-identify as a gender that is different to their assigned gender they are engaged in an act of political resistance against gender oppression. This argument addresses two key issues in feminism. First, it addresses the trans-exclusionary radical feminist argument that trans people cannot participate in feminism’s resistance against gender oppression. Contemporary feminists reject the trans-exclusionary argument, but I contend that it remains unanswered. My argument answers it and shows that trans people engage in the same kind of political resistance that feminists urge cis women to engage in. The second issue is that because trans people used to be excluded from feminism many of the concepts that are central to feminists are biased against trans people. For instance the concept of woman is vital to feminists, but feminism’s concept of woman is not inclusive of trans women. To defend my argument I develop an account of gender that counters this bias and shows that trans people are the genders they self-identify as.Chapter one introduces the topic by highlighting how trans people have been excluded from feminism. Chapter two explicates feminism’s account of the gender categories man and woman and the trans-exclusionary radical feminist argument, and shows how this argument has not been fully addressed. Chapter three illuminates the extent of trans people’s exclusion from feminism and proposes an account of gender that can address feminism’s biases against trans people. Chapter four defends an account of gender identity and uses this account to show that beginning to self-identify as trans is an act of political resistance. Chapter five develops this account of resistance to argue that trans people should be treated as authoritative experts about gender. Chapter six summarizes the project and highlights some next steps. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452397 Fri, 01 May 2026 09:04:12 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452396 Microfibers are the dominant microplastic morphology found in marine environments, yet direct comparative studies between synthetic and natural fibers under environmentally relevant conditions remain limited. This thesis evaluates the chronic sub-lethal effects of cotton (natural)and polyester (polyethylene terephthalate, PET) microfibers, including treated and untreated chemical variants (with and without dyeing and softeners), on adults of the Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis). Mussels were exposed for five weeks to 0, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 fibers L⁻¹ in a fully factorial static-tank renewal setup, followed by a one-week depuration phase. Measured variables included oxidative stress biomarkers (catalase (CAT)), superoxide dismutase (SOD), immune defense enzymes (acid phosphatase (ACP)), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), neurotoxicity enzymes (acetylcholinesterase (AChE)), and organism-level metrics (clearance rate, respiration rate, body condition index (BCI)). Microfiber ingestion, translocation,and retention were quantified in the gills, gastrointestinal tract (GIT), and remaining tissues.Both fiber types induced identifiable biological responses, but magnitude and persistence differed. Cotton exposure elicited stronger and more consistent positive dose responses in oxidative stress and immune biomarkers, particularly in gill tissue, with 3–5-fold elevations inSOD relative to controls. Cotton fibers also showed increased retention and incomplete depuration from remaining tissues, which was accompanied by sustained effects to AChE activity, suggesting long-term cholinergic disruptions. In contrast, polyester exposure producedmore moderate and variable biomarker responses, with more efficient fiber depuration and partial physiological recovery after depuration. Chemical treatments on the textile fibers had minor and inconsistent effects relative to fiber type.Overall, results show that natural fibers cannot be assumed to be inert. Fiber morphology and retention dynamics appear to be the major drivers of biological responses. By integrating multi-tissue biochemical markers with organism-level metrics under environmentally relevantmicrofiber concentrations, this thesis provides a mechanistic ecotoxicological framework for assessing textile microfibers in costal ecosystems and challenges assumptions regarding the relative safety of natural versus synthetic materials. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452396 Fri, 01 May 2026 09:03:13 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452400 In deep-cave mining operations, progressive cave propagation can induce widespread deformation, seismicity, and surface subsidence, which interact directly with natural slopes and the existing open-pit geometry. These coupled processes can increase the likelihood of slope instability and landslides, disrupting operations, threatening surface infrastructure, and endangering workers' safety. Despite the importance of understanding these cave-mine-slope interactions, practical and defensible frameworks that quantify where, when, and how far mining-induced subsidence contributes to landslide susceptibility remain limited, especially in complex mountainous terrain where natural dominant triggers such as rainfall coexist with mining-related drivers.This thesis develops an integrated spatial-temporal susceptibility framework to evaluate landslide susceptibility triggers in a complex mountainous area influenced by deep caving operations (the Grasberg Block Cave and Deep Mill Level Zone) at PT Freeport Indonesia, with a focus on the interactions between those mines and surface slope instabilities. Multi-source remote sensing and geotechnical datasets are compiled into a consistent grid-based inventory spanning 2014 to 2024, including landslide occurrences, topography, hydrology, environmental factors, geology, and mining-related factors. A suite of machine-learning classifiers is trained under severe class imbalance using cost-sensitive learning and resampling strategies. The model's robustness is assessed using year-based holdouts for out-of-sample susceptibility map testing.Results demonstrate that incorporating deformation- and proximity-derived predictors yields clearer discrimination of hazardous terrain and provides quantitative evidence of the relative contributions of mining-related drivers between pre- and post-subsidence periods. The proposed workflow provides a defensible, reproducible basis for separating mining-induced from natural drivers, supporting risk-informed monitoring, prioritization, and long-term hazard management. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452400 Fri, 01 May 2026 09:02:14 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452395 This MA thesis conducts ‘living inquiries’ (Irwin, 2008) into the ongoing efforts towards increasing youth agency in Theatre for Young Audiences (van de Water, 2012; Schonmann, 2023; Elliot, 2023). Using a framework that examines ‘research-creation’ (Chapman & Sawchuck, 2012), through an a/r/tographical lens (Irwin, 2008; O’Donoghue, 2004; Lymburner, 2004), the study reveals entanglements between the roles of artist, researcher and teacher as well as in-between the process, product and reception of adapting (Hutcheon, 2013) a piece of TYA with a collaborative group of youth dramaturgs and performers. The script for The Children of Noisy Co-op expresses a story based on Astrid Lindgren’s pastoral and impressionistic “Noisy Village” series set against the tense backdrop of the ongoing land lease negotiations in False Creek South, Vancouver. The script also tracks the journey of a “play in-motion” (Hershler & Belliveau, 2025, p. 5), navigating a course within a “community of interests” (Spolin, 1999, p. 360) and a variety of influences and opportunities. Through methods of ‘diffractive dramaturgy’ (Lee, 2020) evoking the metaphor of the palimpsest, attempts at revealing hidden experiences within the play’s text are made, resulting in new lines of inquiry. Whereas initial explorations centred on the ways in which the “direct experience” (Spolin, 2001, p. 155) of the youth actors may contribute to the aesthetics of the play’s text, the inquiry shifts to question the limitlessness of adaptation itself and the essence of cultural creation as shared experience (Bogart, 2001, p. 29). https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452395 Fri, 01 May 2026 09:01:09 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452399 The full abstract for this thesis is available in the body of the thesis, and will be available when the embargo expires. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452399 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:41:40 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/831/items/1.0452380 There is a perception in the general public and in many nurses that nursing is not very powerful within the health care system. Certainly that view is prevalent in the literature on power in nursing, where nursing theorists and researchers join nursing leaders in urging more power for nurses. The purpose of this study was to describe the processes that nurses, patients and family members engage in to control care in the hospital setting. Based on feminist and poststructuralist theoretical perspectives, and largely framed by Foucault's theories power, knowledge, discourse. and resistance, the approach taken in this study was to focus on interactions and daily practices as nurses accomplish their work with patients, families and others in the hospital setting. Theethnographic methods of interviewing and participant observation were used to study these interactions on four study units in two hospitals over seven months. Thirty-one interviews with 24 individuals, including nurses, other health care professionals, patients, and parents were carried out. The interpretation of the data was a description of nurses creating and using a variety of discourses in order to control aspects of their practice on the units. The discourses, known collectively as the Discourses of Control, were identified as the discourses of rules, the discourses of compliance, the discourses of adolescents/adolescence, the discourses of growth and development, the discourses of chronic illness, the discourses of normalization, the discourses of family and family-centred care, the discourses of the nurse as patient and family advocate, and the discourses of cost restraint. Nurses use these discourses to "create organization", the written and unwritten rules, understandings, and practices that comprise the ethos of the unit. The discourses not only achieve some control over aspects of nursing practice, they are instrumental in the socialization of new nurses. At the same time that nurses are creating their own 'organization' through discourses, they are unconsciously incorporating dominant discourses (on gender, class, race/ethnicity, etc.) from the larger society and health care system into their owndiscourses and in so doing, help reproduce the ideologies of the dominant culture in thenursing culture they create. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/831/items/1.0452380 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:44 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/42591/items/1.0452251 This graduate project explores how landscape design can help urban youth reconnectwith nature amidst increasing academic pressure, sedentary lifestyles,and nature deficit disorder. Located in Changfeng Park, Shanghai, the projectaims to transform an old mechanical playground into a nature-based, adventure-oriented recreational landscape for youth. Drawing on theories of therapeuticlandscape design, sensory design, and unstructured play, the project integratesecological learning and encourages independent exploration. Through site-specificecological analysis and precedent studies, the project aims to create a sociallyinteractive and sensory-rich environment within a contemporary urban park setting,thereby promoting the physical and mental well-being of young people. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/42591/items/1.0452251 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:40 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452394 Background: People migrating to Canada face a disproportionately higher burden of tuberculosis (TB) disease. To address this, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) mandates an Immigration Medical Exam (IME) for all permanent and select temporary residents before their arrival. This screening aims to identify TB disease, with individuals considered at high risk subsequently referred for post-landing surveillance. Despite its critical role, this process has remained largely unchanged for over four decades, prompting a comprehensive review.Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of individuals referred for post-landing TB surveillance in British Columbia (BC) between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022. We described cohort characteristics, surveillance timelines, and TB incidence. Clinical and demographic data were extracted through chart review from IME records and the provincial TB registry. Participants were followed for up to two years from the date of IME referral. Additionally, we performed a comprehensive risk factor analysis using univariate and multivariate models, including Cox regression, to identify variables associated with TB disease and evaluate the effectiveness of current screening and surveillance criteria.Results: Of 2,895 people referred for post-landing surveillance, 31 (1.1%) were diagnosed with TB after arrival in BC. The surveillance process, while achieving high adherence with over 80% of people completing their workup, was characterized by significant delays, with a median time of 190 days from arrival to treatment initiation for those diagnosed. Abnormal chest x-ray findings were strongly associated with subsequent TB disease, present in 96.8% of people with TB disease. People with abnormal chest x-ray and those from high TB incidence countries had significantly higher hazards of developing TB disease, with adjusted hazard ratios of 9.14 (95% CI: 1.2-67.1) and 4.82 (95% CI: 1.46-15.87), respectively.Conclusion: Chest x-ray abnormalities and TB incidence in the country of origin were strongly associated with TB disease. Given the low diagnostic yield and significant delays in follow-up, post-landing surveillance efforts should prioritize individuals with radiographic abnormalities and those from high-incidence countries. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452394 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:33 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/42591/items/1.0452252 Contemporary cities have largely displaced the expe-rience of night through pervasive artificial illumination,transforming darkness into a managed condition asso-ciated with risk, inefficiency, or absence. This shift hasnot only altered cultural perceptions of nighttime, buthas also produced ecological and physiological conse-quences. In response, this thesis reframes night as a crit-ical environmental and experiential condition.Positioned at the intersection of phenomenology, eco-logical thinking, and cosmological architectures, theproject investigates how architecture can engage nightas a medium rather than a problem to be solved.Through site-based fieldwork conducted at night alongVancouver’s False Creek Seawall, the thesis develops aseries of small-scale architectural interventions that am-plify existing nocturnal conditions. These pavilions op-erate through minimal means, working with reflection,shadow, and acoustic modulation to recalibrate percep-tion and encourage slowing.The project proposes a re-engagement with the urbannight and positions architecture as a mediator that sup-ports more attentive and embodied ways of inhabitingthe city after dark. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/42591/items/1.0452252 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:32 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452393 Bridge structures are critical components of transportation networks, supporting safety during earthquakes and enabling rapid post‑earthquake recovery. Conventional seismic design prioritizes life safety by preventing collapse and balancing damage and economic considerations. However, ductile design often results in significant damage and residual deformations due to limited self‑centering capability. Emerging low‑damage technologies seek to minimize structural damage, provide self‑centering, and enhance resilience, thereby reducing post‑earthquake intervention and downtime.Controlled rocking systems, which incorporate energy‑dissipating connections between the pier cap, column, and footing, offer a promising low‑damage solution but remain difficult to model in practice. Gap opening and closing at the rocking interface is not explicitly supported in most commercial software. While finite element models can capture this behaviour, they are computationally expensive for routine use. Macro models are more efficient but require specialist expertise and are not easily implemented in standard bridge analysis platforms.This dissertation develops a practical framework for the analysis and design of dissipative controlled rocking bridge columns and systematically compares their performance with conventional earthquake resisting systems. A Modified Beam Theory–based Simplified Analytical Method for rocking columns is formulated, together with a compatible three‑spring model for rocking connections implemented using General Link elements in Midas Civil. These models are calibrated and validated against numerical datasets and existing experimental results. The research establishes practical design guidelines and Excel/VBA tools for backbone generation and for sizing post‑tensioning tendons and energy dissipators, and proposes preliminary procedures for response modification factors R and elastic stiffness‑reduction factors α.Seismic performance is evaluated and compared for dissipative controlled rocking, ductile reinforced‑concrete, lead rubber bearing, and friction pendulum bearing systems for prototype highway and LRT bridges, including soil–structure interaction. Serviceability and vibration performance are compared for dissipative controlled rocking and ductile reinforced‑concrete systems with reference to CHBDC/NBCC and Eurocode passenger comfort criteria. The results show that dissipative controlled rocking bridges can achieve reduced base shear and foundation demands, negligible residual drift, and low damage while meeting code requirements. The validated framework and design toolbox provide office‑ready tools that support broader adoption of controlled rocking columns, including in Accelerated Bridge Construction. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452393 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:31 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452392 This doctoral project examines the performance of gender, queerness, and autofiction in the works of three contemporary Francophone feminist authors: Virginie Despentes, Wendy Delorme, and Jo Güstin. Drawing on a corpus of five novels : Les chiennes savantes (1996) and Apocalypse bébé (2010) by Despentes; La Mère, la Sainte et la Putain (2012) and Quatrième génération (2007) by Delorme; and Ah Sissi, il faut souffrir pour être française ! (2019) by Güstin, the dissertation situates itself at the intersection of gender studies, queer theory, and literary studies. It argues that queer autofiction operates not merely as a mode of self-writing, but as a critical aesthetic and political dispositif that destabilizes dominant narrative, social, and epistemological norms.The study foregrounds the plurality of queer subjectivities represented in this corpus, emphasizing figures often marginalized in literary discourse, including queer women, trans characters, racialized bodies, sex workers, and socially precarious subjects. Rather than presenting coherent or idealized identities, these texts construct unstable, contradictory, and situated forms of queerness that challenge both heteronormative frameworks and normative expectations within queer communities. The dissertation further interrogates the persistence of toxic masculinity and heteronormative scripts within queer narratives, demonstrating how characters may simultaneously subvert and reproduce dominant norms. This ambivalence underscores the difficulty of escaping patriarchal structures and highlights autofiction as a space where such contradictions are not resolved but rendered visible.Central to the analysis is the articulation of violence, trauma, and intergenerational memory. Queer autofiction emerges as a privileged site for narrating sexual, social, and symbolic violence, transforming lived experience into forms of narrative resistance. A key contribution of this project lies in its theorization of the relationship between autofiction and trash aesthetics within a comparative framework. Far from mere provocation, trash is understood as an aesthetic of the margins that reclaims disqualified languages, bodies, and desires. Through vulgarity, excess, and linguistic hybridity, these texts contest literary hierarchies and redefine the boundaries of legitimacy.Ultimately, this dissertation positions queer autofiction as a site of experimentation and resistance, where marginality becomes narrative authority and writing itself functions as a space for reimagining identity, community, and futurity. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452392 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:30 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452390 Radiomics is a quantitative medical image analysis method that can be used to extract underlying patterns in computed tomography (CT) scans. Radiomic features may capture information about cancer biology and may be used to improve cancer prognosis and predict treatment response. This thesis aims to leverage radiomics and machine learning (ML) to predict non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient outcomes, ultimately working towards supporting personalized medicine.In this work, radiomic feature consistency across provincial institutions was evaluated using a novel radiomic phantom. Radiomic features are sensitive to imaging parameters, so this crucial first step ensures the robustness of downstream analysis involving multi-institutional data. The most stable features were identified for outcomes modelling.Next, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) models to predict NSCLC recurrence based on radiomic and clinical features were developed. Although ML models can predict outcomes, the reasoning behind their predictions is often unclear. This preliminary study identified the most informative features for predicting recurrence, demonstrating the utility of XAI for understanding model decisions.Then, ML models to predict post-stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) NSCLC recurrence were trained on different feature types. These included radiomic features and clinical information, as well as dosimetric features from radiotherapy plans. In addition, so-called foundation features identified by a largescale ML system were considered. The predictive power of multi-modal features was compared.Finally, an approach for outcomes modelling using a synthetic dataset was proposed to address the need for greater data availability. A comprehensive synthetic dataset containing radiomic and clinical features was generated and then used to develop ML models to predict NSCLC survival. Although shown in the context of NSCLC survival, the methodology could be applied to other use cases. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452390 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:30 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452389 Extreme heat is becoming a high-risk hazard for the province of British Columbia (BC). From 2018 to 2022, there were 115 days when one or more health regions in BC were under heat warnings. As average temperatures in BC rise, extreme heat events will occur more frequently and for longer durations. The absence of sufficient Canadian data linking heat exposure among workers remains a significant knowledge gap. Therefore, the objectives of this thesis are: 1) Estimate the prevalence of heat exposure for workers by occupation, industry, and BC region. 2) Estimate the level of exposure to heat placing workers at risk of heat-related illnesses (HRIs) for workers by occupation, industry, and BC region (where possible). A modified mixed methods approach utilizing published and grey literature, occupational exposure estimates, key informant interviews, census data, and climate data was used to achieve the objectives of this thesis. This study identified over 350,000 workers in BC as exposed to hazardous levels of heat. Hazardous heat refers to the combination of environmental and metabolic heat exposures that exceed a worker’s capacity to thermoregulate, increasing the potential for heat-related illness. Our findings further indicate that construction trade helpers and labourers were the largest exposed group across BC. Additionally, boilermakers and miners are at the highest risk of exposure to hazardous levels of heat. We found that indoor workers make up a large proportion of exposed workers, suggesting that there is a broader range of occupations that may still experience meaningful heat exposure despite lower levels of outdoor work. These estimates tell us the aspects of a job that can put individuals at a higher risk of exposure to hazardous heat, allowing us to tailor future messaging and strategies to better recommend health and safety policies for BC workers. As HRIs are largely preventable, workers classified as exposed at any risk level warrants consideration. The findings from this thesis have important implications for the prevention and mitigation of hazardous heat exposure among BC workers. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452389 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:30 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452388 Protein-protein interactions govern the biomolecular logic of immunity, signalling, and disease. Elementary rates of association, dissociation, and inhibition underpin our understanding of life processes and remain a limiting factor at the frontier of therapeutic discovery. Yet existing assays infer these processes indirectly through ensemble-averaged signals or molecular labels that obscure native dynamics. Here, we introduce a label-free, real-time, mass-resolved single-molecule immunoassay based on interferometric scattering microscopy (iSCAT) that directly observes individual protein-protein binding events in complex biological samples. By detecting light scattered from single proteins as they bind to an antibody-functionalized surface, we resolve discrete antibody-antigen interactions with single-molecule sensitivity and molecular-weight discrimination. Using IgM as a model system, we demonstrate real-time detection of individual binding events, with measured association rates that scale linearly with concentration over three orders of magnitude. Direct counts of IgM binding events in human serum yield quantitative concentrations that agree with bulk measurements obtained by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). This bioaffinity iSCAT platform unifies molecular specificity, label-free detection, real-time kinetics, and mass-resolved single-molecule sensitivity, enabling direct access toprotein-protein recognition processes and establishing a general framework for quantitative, single-molecule immunoassays. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452388 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:30 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452391 This dissertation consists of three essays concerning topics in resource economics, with a focus on the oil and gas and fishing sectors. Each essay quantifies the impacts of extraction on resource users or broader local populations with relevance for designing policies that balance effective management with damage mitigation.In the first essay, I investigate the effects of oil and gas wells on housing prices across the life cycle of the well. I combine detailed geospatial well production data with property characteristics and transactions in Pennsylvania to identify all wells of a given status within specified distances of each home. The effects of active wells on home prices reflect short-term production activity, while the effects of abandoned wells capture the long-term perceived environmental risk that can persist well after extraction ends. I also consider whether well-plugging, a growing focus of environmental policy, can reclaim those losses. I find inactive wells have a negative impact that does not diminish with distance, and plugging does not fully reverse these losses. In the second essay, we use the universe of individual-level catch and revenue data for Maritime Quebec to quantify the distributional impacts of an ITQ system. We look at fishers who differ in skill and outside options to address the efficiency-equity tradeoff that is a central concern in property-rights-based regulation. We implement a difference-in-differences approach to examine heterogeneous changes in income, effort, and exit along these distributions. We find the introduction of a particular ITQ system raised incomes without harming resource-dependent communities.In the third essay, I develop a predictive framework to identify Pennsylvania wells at highest risk of becoming orphaned. I first construct a naive, production-based classification and then estimate the probability that a well becomes orphaned within a fixed time horizon using a logit model. Age, declining production profiles, and small-operator ownership are consistent predictors of future orphaning.Together, these chapters show that while resource-based industries generate substantial economic value, they also create environmental risks, distributional consequences, and legacy liabilities that require policies to anticipate and internalize these costs. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452391 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:30 -0700 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452387 This project analyses legal, academic and popular texts to establish how governing bodies uphold biotechnology’s semiogenic construction of other animals as parts in the machine of conservational, biomedical and agricultural innovation. The first chapter provides a literature review demonstrating that the exclusion of nonhuman animals from ethical and legal consideration is not a natural inevitability, but a historically contingent outcome of Western metaphysical, juridical and epistemological traditions that privilege human exceptionalism. Through critical engagement with continental and poststructural philosophy, feminist ethics, biopolitical theory and critical animal studies, I show how anthropocentric logics structure dominant political, legal and scientific discourses in ways that render nonhuman animals as both ontologically absent and materially vulnerable. Through a critical examination of the legal, institutional and discursive frameworks that govern animal biotechnology in Canada and the Unites States, chapter II indicates how biotechnology is facilitated by a regulatory architecture that systemically abstracts nonhuman animals into categories of utility –rendering them interchangeable, deracinated “living organisms” or “biological products” devoid of sentience, emotions, subjectivity or other vestiges that influence moral standing. Chapter III and IV’s case studies on AquaBounty’s genetically engineered AquAdvantage® Atlantic salmon and Revivcor’s genetically engineered GalSafe® pigs illustrate my assertion that the transgenic nonhuman animal stands as a paradigmatic figure of biopolitical capture: a life molecularised into genomic code, patented as intellectual property and legitimated through a rhetoric of human necessity. These two case reports contextualise the way legislation and regulation actively contribute to directing our food and medical systems towards novel forms of nonhuman animal exploitation, invigorating the animal-industrial complex’s breadth by innovating its expansion. My conclusion pieces together how governance over animal biotechnology and its legitimising of nonhuman animal gene modification depends on a strategic affinity between scientific genetic determinism –the kind that positions humans above other species as an inherited and biological given– and neoliberal policy. This dissertation contributes to literatures concerned with scientific innovations that impact nonhuman animal lives on scales that are cellular and generational, material and ideological. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0452387 Fri, 01 May 2026 06:30:25 -0700