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"The present qualitative, multiple-case study research (a) explored the relationship processes in youth mentoring relationships with children, mentors, and parents, and (b) explored the perceived impacts of participating in the mentoring relationship on children, mentors, and parents. This study combined the tenets of two current theoretical models of youth mentoring, namely, developmental (Rhodes, 2005) and systemic (Keller, 2005b), in order to obtain a holistic view of mentoring relationships. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 12 child-mentor-parent triads participating in a formal, traditional mentoring programme, and whose relationships had been established for one or more years. A thematic cross-case analysis was carried out. Nine different themes relating to the system and another nine themes relating to perceived individual impacts emerged. The inter-relatedness of the system throughout the relationships and its impacts on individuals became apparent. Globally, mentoring relationships can provoke positive, life-altering changes in children, mentors, and parents, when placed in the context of a healthy system in which participants work in concert with each other, collaborating in the children's best interests. Participants addressed the complexities of maintaining this positive momentum, and many experienced difficulty adapting and negotiating the new roles they had to play. Misunderstandings on either side may have negative consequences and initiate a negative spiral that could take considerable effort to turn around. Caseworkers play a large role in helping participants maintain their roles and deffusing difficulties. The use of matched triads to explore both impacts and relationships in the mentoring process yielded important insights and indicated that multiple perspectives greatly contribute to the understanding of the field of youth mentoring." --

As the evidence and knowledge of the physical effects of climate change continue to grow, the world is starting to dissect how those physical changes (e.g. water scarcity, sea-level rise, increased temperatures), both current and predicted, will intersect with society and economies and the potentially significant environmental and human impacts that will result. Of emerging interest are the potential impacts of climate change on the enjoyment of human rights and well-being. Weather and environmental degradation have, as one of multiple stressors, threatened lives and livelihoods throughout history, but what makes this interaction more relevant today is the growing evidence that greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions have contributed and will continue to contribute to long-term or permanent changes to our ecosystems and landscapes and will increase the frequency and severity of extreme events. This amplifies existing social risks and vulnerabilities and will therefore increase the pressures faced by many disadvantaged individuals and populations here in Canada and abroad.

The duration of a forest fire depends on many factors, such as weather, fuel type and fuel moisture, as well as fire management strategies. Understanding how these impact the duration of a fire can lead to more effective suppression efforts as this information can be incorporated into decision support systems used by fire management agencies to help allocate suppression resources. This thesis presents a thorough survival analysis of lightning and people-caused fires in the Intensive fire management zone of Ontario, Canada from 1989 through 2004. The analysis is then extended to investigate spatial patterns across this region using proportional hazards Gaussian shared frailty models. The resulting posterior estimates suggest spatial patterns across this zone. A fire load model is also developed by coupling a fire occurrence model with a survival model and is explored via simulation. Marked cluster processes were found to nicely capture the overall fire load trend over the fire season.

"Research indicates a relationship between prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) and attention levels in children. Studies with non-human primates suggest that both exposure to PNMS and the timing of a stressor during pregnancy are associated with greater attention problems in offspring; however, this has not been sufficiently tested in humans because of methodological constraints. We explored the relationship between objective and subjective measures of PNMS for 85 women who were pregnant during the 1998 Quebec Ice Storm and attention levels in their 5.5 year-old children, while controlling for socioeconomic status, child's sex, and maternal state anxiety. As a group, children in the study displayed significantly less attentive behaviour compared to a standardized norm. Boys in this group were significantly less attentive than girls. Objective PNMS exposure during 1st trimester correlated positively with attention problems in the children, accounting for 15.2% of the variance in attention levels as rated by Kindergarten teachers. In a behavioural task to detect sustained attention difficulties and Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms, children exposed during the 3rd trimester obtained significantly worse scores compared to children exposed in other trimesters. However, in this case, objective and subjective PNMS appeared to act as protective factors, raising the possibility of the presence of another unknown mechanism that negatively affected the attention variables." --