University of Regina Thèses et mémoires publiés en 2025

The Agbada Formation is the prolific portion and the prospective interval of the Niger Delta Basin, which is an extensional rift basin, located in the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa. The formation is a regressive offlap succession that formed under shallow-marine conditions, and contains the petroleum system that occurs in the Niger Delta Basin. The Niger Delta Basin occupies the southern end of the Benue Trough resulting from the failed rift which is related to the opening of the Atlantic Ocean since Late Jurassic Period. The evolution and sedimentation of the Niger Delta Basin are influenced by the extensional tectonic …  Lire la suite

Language transmission among immigrants in a bilingual and multicultural country like Canada is crucial to preserving cultural identity and maintaining intergenerational ties. This study explores how immigrant families in Saskatchewan, mainly of Asian and African origins, transmit their mother tongue in an environment where English and French dominate. Drawing on theories of language transmission and cultural identity, we examine the motivations, strategies and challenges encountered by these families in the process of language transmission. Our objectives are to describe the contexts of mother tongue use, identify the transmission strategies used, examine the impact of these strategies on the construction of …  Lire la suite

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is one of today’s leading birth anomalies, with an estimated 90,000 Canadian families having a child or adolescent family member living with CHD. Children with CHD are at risk for many physical and psychological challenges. Siblings of children and adolescents with CHD experience higher levels of psychological symptoms, functional difficulties, and family dysfunction than those without a sibling with CHD. However, limited to no evidence-based resources or programs exist to support these siblings. A chronic disease management program, the Children’s Healthy-Heart Activity Monitoring Program in Saskatchewan (CHAMPS), has been developed to address the well-being of youth …  Lire la suite

This paper examines Étienne Balibar’s ideas within the context of hospitality, drawing on key philosophical theories to explore concepts such as cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitics, citizenship, and borders, along with their implications for hospitality. Through a critical analysis of Balibar’s works, this study seeks to illuminate the ongoing immigration crisis in the Mediterranean, evaluate past and present efforts to address the issue, and propose potential strategies for improving the conditions of immigrants. Additionally, it investigates the contemporary relevance of these ideas, emphasizing their significance in modern ethical and political discourse. Ultimately, this research aims to enhance the understanding of hospitality as a …  Lire la suite

The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced significant security challenges, as IoT devices, due to their limited resources, remain vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Traditional machine learning (ML) models proposed for IoT device identification, while effective, struggle to adapt to new, emerging threats and the ever-evolving landscape of IoT networks. This thesis proposes enhanced IoT device identification models based on network traffic analysis, incorporating ML and transfer learning (TL) to address these limitations. Building upon previous research, the proposed models utilize ML and TL to improve the generalization and adaptability of existing ML models, even when faced with …  Lire la suite

There is no doubt that our current best bet to significantly reduce the carbon footprint in the atmosphere while buying us the time to shift from our over-dependence on fossil fuels to greener/cleaner energies is the amine-based post-combustion carbon capture process (PCC). Nevertheless, amidst advances in amine-based PCC technology and its well-known reputation in CO2 capture, flue gas impurities (SO2 and NO2) cause much harm to the capturing efficiency and render the absorbing solvent unable to stand the test of time (degradation). Conventional pretreatment technologies such as Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), Selective Non-catalytic Reduction (SNCR), and Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) …  Lire la suite

Ce mémoire vise à souligner le rôle important des enseignant.es en tant qu’agent.es d’équité et d’inclusion dans les cours de français en milieu minoritaire. Les récits de la diversité concourent au bien-être des élèves et soutiennent leur construction identitaire positive et l’apprentissage de l’altérité. Ils favorisent aussi l’apprentissage du mieux vivre ensemble, la communication interculturelle et la justice sociale. Toutefois, ils sont peu utilisés dans les salles de classe, car les enseignant.es rencontrent divers obstacles matériels, relationnels ou ne sont pas formé.es à la sélection de livres et de récits culturellement sensibles et pertinents. Cette recherche porte sur la pratique …  Lire la suite

In modern applications like online shopping, financial forecasting, and real-time fraud detection, data distributions frequently shift, causing predictive models trained on historical data to underperform. This phenomenon, known as Concept Drift (CD), presents a major challenge in adaptive learning environments, necessitating ongoing monitoring and adjustment to accommodate evolving data streams. Active drift detection methods, which track changes in data distribution or model performance, offer a targeted solution by prompting adaptations only when significant shifts are detected. However, existing active methods face challenges: distribution-based approaches may miss subtle drifts or respond to non-critical changes (virtual drift), while performance-based methods, which detect …  Lire la suite

Integrating blockchain with IoT ensures secure, transparent data exchange through immutability and consensus mechanisms, preventing data tampering. However, the increasing number of IoT devices raises risks like unauthorized access and network attacks. Blockchain scalability issues also affect throughput and latency, challenging real-time IoT applications. This thesis addresses these challenges through four contributions that aim to improve the security, scalability, and efficiency of blockchainbased IoT networks, balancing security with performance needs. Our first contribution is to develop an end-to-end security mechanism for IoT networks, called the trust-based ABAC mechanism for IoT networks (TABI). TABI integrates edge computing and blockchain technology to …  Lire la suite

While social media-based support groups continue to grow in popularity among parents of children with mental illness (PCMI), the impact those groups have on their ability to cope with their caregiver strain remains unknown. Exploring the impact of these groups is an essential component of understanding how these parents are coping with the high levels of caregiver strain they experience, and whether said groups can be utilized by others seeking to support PCMI. This study is a preliminary exploration of who is using these groups and how much, and the benefits and challenges of group membership through an inductive and …  Lire la suite

This final thesis defense presents Life After/Before, a docufiction that investigates themes of identity, representation, memory, and self-discovery. The film intertwines fact and fiction, featuring family members portraying themselves in a staged yet emotionally genuine narrative. Drawing on Werner Herzog's concept of ecstatic truth and Charles Eidsvik's notion of cinematic artifice, the project transcends traditional documentary formats to create emotional authenticity. Structured around the stages of grief, the film engages with theoretical insights from authors like Gilles Deleuze, and David MacDougall, highlighting how mediated memories shape personal and collective understanding. Through a blend of journal, road movie, and family album …  Lire la suite

Interactive Information Retrieval (IIR) interfaces are often evaluated using post-task questionnaires that gather subjective measures such as satisfaction, ease of use, usefulness, and user engagement, as well as in-task objective measures obtained from log analysis. While these methods provide valuable insights, a more comprehensive evaluation requires a deeper understanding of user behaviour. This thesis aims to bridge this gap by developing a comprehensive framework that integrates real-time emotional responses with behavioural data, enabling a more nuanced evaluation of search interfaces. In the first study, we developed a novel method for capturing real-time emotional responses using consumer-grade front-facing cameras. This approach …  Lire la suite

Saskatchewan has one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis (MS) globally, affecting approximately 4,000 people within the province. An emerging topic of study within MS rehabilitation is dual-tasking (i.e., the performance of two tasks simultaneously). Reports on dual-task performance among people with MS (PwMS) vary in the literature, with past research limited by methodological differences and minimal consideration of the underlying neurophysiology. Studies suggest that changes in inhibitory neural activity in the motor cortex may support dual-task performance in healthy adults, as assessed by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques. Other TMS work indicates that MS alters corticospinal inhibition, but …  Lire la suite

Urbanization is a major contributor to global biodiversity loss, and there are knowledge gaps on how urban wildlife responds to urbanization in prairie cities. I analyzed how species richness of birds and mammals responded to a gradient of urbanization, measured by impervious cover, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Regina is a prairie city with a large amount of green space of planted trees, a lake, and is surrounded largely by monoculture annual crops. I deployed trail cameras and automated recording units to assess mammal and bird richness, respectively. Equipment was deployed for 30 d seasonally between October 2021 and May 2024. …  Lire la suite

Many video game development teams passionately pursue innovative concepts they believe will appeal to users, often resulting in well-crafted games as products. However, despite the creativity and effort of the teams, the resulting games frequently fail to realize their full audience potential and economic viability. This thesis presents the GERM framework to enhance user engagement, retention, and monetization in video games. The framework is named GERM, which is short for Game Engagement, Retention, and Monetization, to emphasize its focus on strengthening these three foundational areas. The framework elements are a Multi-Objective Goal Generator, Reward System, Timer Scheme, Social Dynamics, Enhancers, …  Lire la suite

The rapid growth of IoT devices has revolutionized industries while exposing IoT networks to cybersecurity threats, particularly DDoS attacks, which compromise network stability. Traditional detection methods struggle to address the constraints of resource-limited environments, scalability, and the need for lightweight, optimized, and reliable systems. This thesis addresses these challenges through five objectives aimed at adaptive DDoS detection and mitigation systems for IoT networks, balancing accuracy, resource efficiency, and adaptability. The first objective focuses on developing a Flow and Unified Information-based DDoS detection system (FLUID) for small-scale IoT networks, enabling DDoS detection with minimal computational overhead. The FLUID system uses flow …  Lire la suite

The rapid emergence of electric vehicles, particularly those equipped with in­wheel electric motors (IWEM), has drawn significant attention due to their inherent performance benefits and design challenges. A major challenge for IWEM vehicles is the increased unsprung mass resulting from integrating electric motors within the wheels, degrading ride comfort and road holding. This study confirms the impact of unsprung mass on vehicle dynamics, which higher unsprung mass shifts the peak vibration frequency to lower values and amplifies vibrations in the 10-20 Hz range, thereby underscoring the critical need for optimized suspension design in IWEM vehicles. To address these challenges, a …  Lire la suite

Current lifetime data represent a unique subset of length-biased data where only the times from the initiating event to the cross-section date are observed without follow-up. We propose an efficient estimation procedure to fit the semi-parametric proportional hazards model using current lifetime data. This estimation procedure is based on the EM algorithm which has two versions based on the support points of the non-parametric baseline hazard function. We apply the method to simulated data and Parkinson’s disease current lifetime data drawn from the Canadian-Open Parkinson Network (C-OPN). We estimate the effects of clinical and epidemiological covariates using the proportional hazards …  Lire la suite

Leisure and recreation are known to positively impact families and children with disabilities. Leisure is defined as an activity that participants take part in when they are free from the demands of other responsibilities. However, opportunities for individuals with disabilities to take part in leisure activities in the community can be limited. The purpose of this research is to explore the experiences of families and children with disabilities in community recreation programming. To obtain participants’ perspectives the study was done using a constructivist viewpoint, and a qualitative descriptive design. Data were collected from four families using both one-on-one interviewing and …  Lire la suite

Sporopollenin (SP), one of the earliest defensive polymers to emerge in land plants, has been suggested to be key to terrestrialization. Sporopollenin is the main polymeric component of the outer walls of embryophyte spores and pollen. The genetic and biochemical machinery in sporopollenin synthesis may share ancestral lineage with those in synthesizing other polymers, cutin, and lignin such as laccases involved in polymerizing the latter. The skewed5-like enzymes are suggested to be involved in sporopollenin cross-linking. To investigate their potential functions in the construction of spore walls, this study selects LAC2, LAC3, SKS1, and SKS2 of a model moss, Physcomitrium …  Lire la suite

Partially funded by the “Sensory Acts: More than Human Communication in the Circumpolar North” project, this research aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation of interspecies communication, using storytelling and multisensory ethnographic methodologies to describe the interspecies relationships that have informed Indigenous ways of knowing since time immemorial. Contrary to previous beliefs surrounding the sexual division of labor and the understanding of the male–female/ hunter–gatherer binaries, current archaeological research has uncovered historical evidence of females’ involvement in the hunt. Through a partnership with Inuvialuit women who hunt, fish, and trap in the Western Canadian Arctic, this research contributes to multispecies …  Lire la suite

This study investigates asymptotic and bootstrap confidence intervals (CIs) for the ratio of variances of two independent log-normal distributions. Extensive simula-tions were conducted to evaluate the performance of these CIs under varying sample sizes (10 to 350) and variance ratios, with one variance fixed at 0.1 and the other varying from 0.1 to 2.0. The impacts of equal and unequal were studied. The results reveal that the asymptotic CI performs well for small variance differences, especially with moderate to large sample sizes, while bootstrap CIs outperform it for larger variance differences. Notably, the t-bootstrap CI excels when both the variance …  Lire la suite

This study explored the mental health and well-being experiences of post-secondary students in rural Saskatchewan as there is limited research pertaining to this population. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three participants from different rural locations in Saskatchewan who were currently attending a regional college and willing to discuss their experience of mental health and well-being. This study was informed by principles of Narrative Inquiry and a thematic analysis led to the development of four main themes: feelings, prioritization, accessibility, and stressors. The students’ shared stories provided perspective on the experience of mental health and well-being of post-secondary students living in …  Lire la suite

Previous researchers have sought to measure and predict lay notions of punishment. However, how ethical principles of punishment are applied and to whom is not always straightforward. Often punishment is assumed to be the only outcome of a legal conflict and, therefore, synonymous with justice. The notion of restorative justice has challenged that assumption. In this thesis, I sought to understand what needs, punishment or otherwise, are essential to perceptions that justice is restored. In the first study, a scale was created that measures needs of justice (e.g., feelings of safety, redemption). Four, three, and two factor solutions were considered, …  Lire la suite

The relationship between Black adolescents and policing is distraught, with historical and contemporary complexities that mirror broader patterns of systemic racism and social inequality. While studies in this area have explored the experiences of the adult population, the experiences of Black adolescents remain under researched and documented. To exacerbate the situation, the relatively sparse existing literature underscoring policing and Black adolescents identified survey methodology as predominantly used, posing a limitation , while also identifying historic al, media representation and social relationships as factors influencing Black individual perception of policing. This study suggests a shift to case study design , investigating …  Lire la suite

A central problem of modern physics concerns our understanding of the internal structure of hadrons (baryons and mesons) within the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) framework. QCD predicts that partons (quarks and gluons), have dramatically different interaction strengths in different regimes. At very small impact parameter interactions (high momentum transfer, i.e. hard interactions), partons interact feebly and these interactions can reliably be described by perturbative QCD. At large impact parameter (small momentum transfer, i.e. soft interactions) partons interact with great strength, resulting in color confinement within hadrons. QCD also predicts that hadronic reaction amplitudes factorize into hard and soft parts from moderate …  Lire la suite

Paleoenvironmental and paleolimnological reconstructions are of great importance to understand future responses of the environment to climate change and environmental stress. Two lake archives, Deep Lake and St. Denis – Pond 1, are used to understand past environmental and limnological conditions in the northernmost part of the Great Plains of North America. Climatic conditions are inferred from the lake sediments and the ostracod assemblage for the Mid- to Late-Holocene (6,700 to 120 cal. yr BP). Mainly, dry conditions with shorter wetter conditions prevailed during the Mid-Holocene as suggested by the presence of a depositional hiatus from 6,302 to 4,366 cal. …  Lire la suite

A constructivist grounded theory approach with an Indigenous lens was used for a qualitative analysis of questions on culture, mental health, physical activity, and land-based activities. This analysis was undertaken as a part of the Smart Platform: Smart Indigenous Youth (SIY) project. The goals of the SIY were to increase physical activity using a cultural land-based active living intervention along with a technological component through an app. This thesis focused on the impact of the intervention on the mental health of on-reserve Indigenous youth in southern Saskatchewan; eleven on-reserve Indigenous youth shared their perceptions in focus groups before and after …  Lire la suite

Modern eating habits have created a tremendous burden of disease in Canada and other western countries. There is a large research literature that has investigated interventions for improving dietary health in the population, including work that focuses on rational or conscious factors (e.g., the provision of health information) and heuristic factors (e.g., social norms and priming healthier food choices). More broadly, researchers have worked to identify determinants of food choice to better understand why people select particular foods, resulting in an array of known factors that in some way predict food choice. The current research was designed to examine and …  Lire la suite

Global climate change, driven by CO₂ emissions, has caused a 1.1 °C rise in temperatures and a 30% increase in ocean acidity. The Paris Agreement targets net-zero emissions by 2050. Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS), especially geological CO₂ storage in saline aquifers, can store billions of tons of CO₂. However, salt precipitation during injection can clog pores and reduce permeability. Understanding the dynamics of this process, influenced by injection flow rate, pore structure, and brine properties, is crucial for optimizing CCUS strategies. This thesis examines the impact of salt precipitation on CO₂ geological storage in saline aquifers using microfluidic …  Lire la suite

Throughout history, people living with developmental disabilities1 have been denied the right to express their sexuality (Winges-Yanez, 2014). Yet, they have the same sexual needs, desires, or interests as those who do not have disabilities (Gil-Llario et al, 2018). Education, conversations, and experiences of sexuality are often denied or restricted due to stereotypes, fears, or attitudes held by society and those who support people with developmental disabilities. Attitudes regarding disability and sexuality are profoundly problematic; they are often sexist, ableist, heteronormative, and ageist (Campbell, 2017). This includes beliefs that people with disabilities are asexual, not interested in sex or engaging …  Lire la suite

This PhD research focused on enhancing CO2 desorption performance in post-combustion carbon capture processes by developing and optimizing catalytic heat exchangers. The guiding principle was to address challenges, including operational complexity and high energy consumption, while minimizing costly modifications to existing piping and infrastructure in pilot plants. The feasibility of novel aqueous piperazine-based biphasic solvents was initially investigated to reduce solvent flow rates and optimize heat exchanger size. Although these solvents demonstrated promising absorption and desorption performance, challenges such as high viscosities, suboptimal phase split ratios and low amine concentrations in the rich phase limited their applicability in the catalytic …  Lire la suite

This research explores the experiences of female-identifying Muslim students attending secondary schools in Saskatchewan. This study explores and analyzes the intersections of religion, race, and gender to identify their impacts on participants’ experiences. Additionally, this study focuses on how female-identifying Muslim students resist societal expectations and stereotyped beliefs. While some research investigating the experiences of Muslim students is available, significant gaps exist surrounding the experiences of female-identifying Muslim students attending secondary schools in Saskatchewan. This research draws on the qualitative approach and methods of social constructivism and thematic analysis. Participants engaged in semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to guide the …  Lire la suite

Wetlands are important reservoirs that provide many essential ecosystem functions. For generations, they have been known to prevent soil erosion, mitigate floods, purify pollutants, and serve as habitats for many organisms. In today's world, where increasing population and food insecurity pressure economies to drain, dredge, and destroy wetlands, understanding their importance beyond their traditionally known functions is timely. For example, many biogeochemical cycles in wetlands regulate greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane. A driving force behind these cycles are microbes. Discussing biogeochemical cycles without mentioning microbes would leave us without the full picture. The composition of microbial communities in …  Lire la suite

In an era characterized by the urgent need for sustainable energy solutions, geothermal energy emerges as a promising avenue for meeting growing global energy demands while reducing carbon emissions. Leveraging innovative geothermal exploration methods during the 2021 and 2022 summer fieldwork seasons in Mount Meager and Mount Cayley geothermal areas, near surface ground temperature datasets were meticulously collected. Current research endeavors focus on analyzing and evaluating these temperature records through the development of numerical models for assessing the heat balance of the shallow underground and analytical heat conservation models. Energy, Mines and Resources Canada (EMR) provided funding for the drilling …  Lire la suite

In this thesis, first, experimental and numerical studies were conducted to differentiate solvent exsolution (i.e., the solution gas becomes the dispersed gas) and liberation (i.e., the dispersed gas becomes the free gas) processes from the heavy oil-CO2/CH4/C3H8 system in bulk fluids and porous media. Experimentally, two series of constant-composition-expansion (CCE) tests in a PVT cell and differential fluids production (DFP) tests in a sandpacked physical model were performed. The experimental results showed that the solvent exsolution from each heavy oil-solvent system in the porous media occurred earlier than that in the bulk fluids. In addition, the nucleation of CH4 bubbles …  Lire la suite