UVicSpace | Institutional Repository
UVicSpace is the University of Victoria’s open access scholarship and learning repository. It preserves and provides access to the digital scholarly works of UVic faculty, students, staff, and partners. Items in UVicSpace are organized into collections, each belonging to a community.
For more information about depositing items, see the Submission Guidelines.
Recent Submissions
Archiving the past, present, and future: Creating a uniquely huuʕiiʔatḥ archival framework
(2026) Wilton, Emma A.; Walsh, Andrea N.; Happynook, Tommy
This thesis explores ways in which huuʕiiʔatḥ cultural knowledges are central to the creation of a physical archive of huuʕiiʔatḥ cultural Belongings, thus providing an alternative to a traditional colonial archival framework where often huuʕiiʔatḥ cultural Belongings are categorized in non-Indigenous contexts. The Huu-ay-aht First Nations identified the need for a culturally specific archive to record and store cultural knowledge gathered during the negotiations of the Maa-nulth Final Agreement. I was invited by huuʕiiʔatḥ hereditary chief ḥapinyuuk Dr. Tommy Happynook on behalf of his community, to work on developing a culturally specific archive for the Huu-ay-aht First Nations. I developed a research methodology framed by three phases: Showing Up, Listening, and Reflecting. The development of this methodology was prompted by my engagement in community-led discussions with the ḥaẃiiḥ and nananiiqsu Councils. Through my community discussions, a framework featuring huuʕiiʔatḥ hereditary houses as the main organizing structure with layers for maatmaas (House), family, individual, and ʔiiḥmisʔap (Belongings) emerged. Information held in these “layers” of the archive ensure culturally safe access to Belongings and knowledges, and promotes the transmission of cultural knowledges amongst generations. As a case study, this thesis serves as a point of departure for consideration by Indigenous Nations and researchers seeking to create a culturally specific archival framework. Woven throughout the pages are my honest retellings and reflections of events as a non-Indigenous anthropologist. I argue I cannot remove myself from this research as it is my subjectivities and lived experiences which have brought me to this point in time to conduct this research. Relationality is core to how I conducted this research and the archival framework itself. I reflect on my research relationships, my understanding of Witnessing, and what I have gained from this research into my professional career.
Specification-driven generation of type-safe python configuration classes for JSON inputs
(2026) Gilanilarimi, Mohsen; Schneider, Teseo
Modern scientific and engineering libraries often use JSON configuration files to run simulations and workflows. JSON is readable and widely supported, but real configuration files can be hard to write correctly because they may have deep nesting, lists, optional and required fields, fixed choices, and numeric limits. In many libraries, these rules are described in a separate input specification file, but developers usually create the type-safe interface and validation code by hand. This can repeat the same logic, become inconsistent when the specification changes, and lead to unclear error messages. This thesis introduces a system that takes the JSON input specification as the main reference and automatically generates strongly typed Python configuration classes from it. The generated classes are organized in the same structure as the specification using nested classes, and users can set values with normal attribute access to ensure each value is placed in the correct part of the specification. Validation is built into both the constructors and the property setters. This means whenever a value is given, the system checks its type and rules (for example, valid ranges, allowed options, or required file extensions). It also allows complex parts of the configuration to be filled step by step by setting their child properties. The system shows which fields are required using the generated documentation, and it also provides a report method that finds any missing required values before saving. After the configuration is complete, the objects are converted back into JSON-compatible output that matches the specification by design and can be used by other libraries. Internally, the approach builds an intermediate tree from specification pointers and then generates the class from it. It supports heterogeneous lists with wildcard routing and polymorphic variables with multiple allowable shapes. Robustness is tested by making controlled changes to the specification and running failure-case tests. The results show that the system reliably works with realistic patterns and clearly detects unsupported types and problems when the specification hierarchy is in the wrong order.
Using microchemistry to track the marine migrations of coho and Chinook salmon
(2026) Quindazzi, Micah; Juanes, Francis
Pacific salmon (genus Oncorhynchus) display complex life history strategies from estuary entry to their return migrations. During this marine migration and residency period, Pacific salmon can traverse thousands of kilometers, moving to and through multiple unique marine regions with their own unique set of environmental and ecological conditions that these fish must contend with to survive. The marine migration and residency period of Pacific salmon, is still poorly described, often considered a black box, despite 100 years of considerable international effort. Current methods using passive tags are often difficult to interpret through seasons and across patchy distributions and inconsistent fishery efforts. Active tags can provide more high scale resolution, though at a steeper cost and substantial tag burden effects for smaller salmon. Intrinsic tags, those aspects of the fish that are universally part of an organism’s biology, provide researchers with a novel method of tracking fish migrations. This dissertation reports on the results of using otoliths as intrinsic tags in both coho (O. kisutch) and Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha). Chapter 1 acts as an introduction and a 100-year retrospective on Pacific salmon tagging ventures up to this point in time. Chapter 2 and 3 focus on using otolith microchemistry to identify the marine migrations of coho and Chinook respectively. Chapter 4 identifies growth considerations within coho salmon related to migration, with slower growing coho in the early marine period being more likely to partake in further migrations. Chapter 5 focuses on producing otolith size to fork length size to interpret early life stage events in Chinook and coho salmon, with some investigations into the estimation of the size at estuary entry and estuary residence time of Chinook salmon. Chapter 6 looks at ageing Chinook salmon through otolith microchemistry, with some key findings including that older Chinook are more likely to be underaged by scales, and that larger Chinook salmon at their first ocean winter return at a younger age and smaller size. Chapter 7 applies otolith microchemistry analyses to contaminants research, identifying that predicted otolith marine migration life-history types match general expectations for contaminant profiles of Chinook salmon that conduct migrations to both coastal and offshore environments. Finally, chapter 8 is a six year retrospective on this type of research and some considerations for future international collaborations.
Design and optimization of an electric vehicle battery thermal management system using CFD simulations and CFD-derived GPR-ANN metamodels
(2026) Wong, Chon Him; Dong, Zuomin
Transportation is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have gained widespread adoption in passenger car applications due to their high energy efficiency and potential to reduce carbon emissions. Extending BEV technology to medium-duty trucks (MDTs), which are widely used in commercial transportation, can further improve energy efficiency and reduce GHG emissions.
The thermal management system (TMS) for the battery energy storage system (BESS), propulsion motors, and power electronics is essential to ensure safe, reliable, and efficient BEV operation while extending battery life. For electric medium-duty trucks (e-MDTs), which operate under diverse and demanding duty cycles, designing an effective TMS is particularly challenging due to the complex heat transfer processes within battery packs and their associated liquid-cooling and heating systems.
High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are typically required to evaluate and optimize BESS thermal management performance. However, such simulations are computationally intensive, making large-scale design exploration across varying operating conditions impractical.
This work develops data-driven Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) metamodels to approximate the thermal behaviour of BESS and enable efficient Battery Thermal Management System (BTMS) design optimization. A numerical BTMS model for an e-MDT is developed in MATLAB/Simulink, and CFD simulations are conducted for multiple battery pack and BTMS configurations under representative driving conditions. The resulting simulation data are used to train GPR-ANN metamodels that predict cooling performance without requiring repeated CFD simulations.
The proposed framework reduces simulation time by approximately 97% while maintaining a maximum prediction error of 1% for the selected operating scenarios, providing an efficient and accurate approach for the model-based design and optimization of BTMS for e-MDTs.
Second-order nonlinear optics as an orientation-independent probe of molecular environments at interfaces
(2026) Kumarasiri, Aruna; Hore, Dennis Kumar
Interfacial chemistry is fundamentally governed by a unique molecular environment, within which the electronic structure changes drastically across distances of only the order of angstroms, yet it profoundly controls much of the macroscopic behaviour in materials science, catalysis, and biological systems. With such critical importance, the need for interface-specific analytical techniques has become increasingly apparent. As a result, nonlinear optical techniques, such as vibrational sum frequency generation (SFG), have become powerful tools for probing interfaces, particularly due to their inherent surface specificity. Even though these techniques show great promise for such applications, the electronic structure information that SFG provides is inherently coupled with the molecular orientational distribution of the molecules, such that, extracting structural information often has to be done under the assumption of a particular orientational distribution function. This, in return, introduces significant uncertainties into quantitative interfacial analysis that could potentially lead to inaccurate interpretations. In this dissertation, a theoretical and experimental framework is introduced for the SFG process to improve the accuracy of interfacial analysis by addressing this matter, to extract the electronic structure information at the interface without committing to any particular orientational distribution.
The second chapter of the dissertation demonstrates a novel theoretical framework to determine the surface hyperpolarizability ratio—one of the most fundamental parameters in interfacial chemistry as it directly reflects the molecular electronic response at the interface—completely independent of, and therefore unaffected by, the orientational distribution of the molecules. In this way, the results of this work leverage the best features of the SFG technique, that is, its surface specificity, while expanding its practicality toward what is typically accessible only through bulk isotropic measurements. Another critical challenge to address in this type of work is experimental accuracy across the different polarization combinations of the SFG signal. To address this, building on our theoretical foundation, the third chapter of this dissertation introduces a null-angle-based calibration method for SFG analysis. This calibration procedure also helps extend this orientational distribution-free framework into buried interfaces. Finally, in the fourth chapter of the dissertation, the orientational characteristics across different interfaces were analyzed with the aid of the previously developed theoretical and experimental framework, and the importance of using surface-specific parameters for accurate orientational analysis was demonstrated, strengthening the use of polarization-resolved SFG as an accurate quantitative probe of interfaces.