The development of augmented reality (AR) has provided firms with increasing opportunities to improve customer experiences, especially in a shared context where customers are encouraged to communicate with others. This study investigates the effectiveness of social AR in building relationships among customers through a shared social experience, one which includes shared sense of place, social interaction, and social identity. Data was collected from 378 active users of a social AR application and was analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and Hayes’ PROCESS Macro. Results from this study show that shared sense of place, social interaction, and social identity mediate the influence of social AR past usage on customer-to-customer relationships, which consequently enhance customers’ continuance intention to use the social AR application. Additionally, the results of the moderated mediation analysis reveal that the indirect effect of social AR past usage on continuance intention is positively moderated by extraversion, such that at higher level of extraversion the mediated relationship becomes stronger. These findings offer important contributions to the AR marketing literature and add valuable insights for practitioners to advance the use of AR technology.

Rural communities play a major role in the Canadian landscape and identity. As such it is important to explore the role of rural Canadian communities and why people are so drawn to them. The purpose of this research is to explore why people are so attached to rural communities across Canada despite the presence of economic and population decline. This has been achieved through a thematic analysis of the transcripts of CBC TV series “Still Standing”. An interview with the show producer was also conducted in order to gain background information of the show. The results showed that, above all, there is a strong desire and determination to stay among community members. They will do “whatever it takes” in order to stay in the community and continue calling it home. Results also showed that residents were not concerned with initiating significant growth for the community, they simply wanted to maintain the livability of the community for themselves. Many community members spoke about various initiatives and solutions that they had developed that were quite creative in terms of community resilience. Community members also often used place-based assets and unique local qualities as a catalyst for development in the community. One of the primary challenges that was common for communities regardless of their region or province was the threat and challenge of youth outmigration. Many community members were concerned that youth outmigration would threaten the survival of their communities in the future. Some of the challenges that emerged from this research included the limited number of communities that could be studied, as well as the fact that data was taken from the transcripts of an edited television show.

Transitioning out of high school is a significant step in a young person’s life. The Tri-Sector TAY Planning process in the Niagara Region of Ontario, Canada has developed a single integrated transition plan for youths with an intellectual and/or developmental disability (I/DD). This plan unfolds collaboratively, with education and community professionals meeting at the same planning table with the family and the youth beginning at the age of 14 years. Notably, no new government funding was provided to support this process. The case study reported herein explored both the potential benefits of the Tri-Sector Planning process and the ways in which this multi-sector planning procedure might be improved. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen participants, including youths, parents, and professionals. A qualitative thematic data analysis was conducted. Collaboration was identified as an important component of the multi-sector integrated planning process, critical to promoting successful outcomes for youths, including gainful employment and entry into post-secondary education. On the question of possible improvements to the procedure, promoting increased youth engagement and agency during the planning process emerged as an important consideration. In addition, a Social Return on Investment (SROI) quantitative and qualitative data analysis was completed on the case study data to examine the identified impacts of the process. Even with the investment into the Niagara Region Tri-Sector TAY Planning process based only on an estimate of funding from participating organizations, the net SROI ratio was 1.00:4.92, illustrating that for every $1.00 of funding contributed by participating organizations, the after-cost impact benefit was $4.92.

Urban trees provide important benefits to communities, from mitigating stormwater to improved air quality. Municipalities across Ontario encounter a decline in their urban tree canopy (UTC). UTC assessment is essential for the management of urban trees, especially in the context of climate change. However, quantifying the canopy remains a challenge, given that tree crowns are difficult to assess from the ground. Geospatial technologies provide a suitable alternative to costly, ground-based assessments. Still, they typically require a significant investment in resources, including technical expertise and equipment. For many small- and medium-sized municipalities facing the realities of climate change, these investments are cost-prohibitive. This study aimed to assess the UTC within the Town of Lincoln, Ontario, using geospatial technologies. The first objective was to estimate canopy cover and distribution using image classification as the main approach. The second objective was to assess the proficiency of a low-cost method based on image interpretation (i.e., i-Tree Canopy) to calculate canopy cover compared to the main approach. The third objective was to examine the possibility of using the canopy goal designated by the Niagara Official Plan as a standard canopy goal. This research study produced three main results. First, the image classification indicated that the tree canopy covers 21% of the Town. Second, this study demonstrated that the results from the main approach are similar to those obtained from i-Tree Canopy. Given the similarity between these approaches, this study concluded that the lower-cost i-Tree Canopy method could be combined with other methods to prepare accurate and affordable canopy assessments for resource-limited municipalities. Finally, this study concluded that canopy goals should account for local Urban Tree Canopy Assessment Using Geospatial Technologies differences based on geographic location. This study makes a valuable contribution to the literature as it informs management of canopy resources in communities with limited resources. Outcomes from this study can also better inform tree-canopy goals and policies with a cost-effective method that requires minimal expertise. The ability to conduct UTC assessment in smaller communities is critical in mitigating the impacts of climate change facing most of these communities.

In Canada, occupations including janitors, caretakers, and building superintendents are the fourth most prevalent occupational group among men in the labour force, while cleaners are the 10th most prevalent occupational group among women (Statistics Canada, 2008). Cleaning tasks, typically labor-intensive, are characterized by a combination of static muscle loads (mainly involving bending and twisting of the back) and repetitive movements of the arms and hands requiring high physical exertion. Tasks such as lifting, mopping, and vacuuming often involve awkward postures with both dynamic and static muscular activities. These types of prolonged static and repetitive muscle activities cause muscle fatigue and may lead to musculoskeletal disorders. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of custodial cleaning tasks on upper extremity muscle activity and to assess changes in kinematics throughout the duration of a shift. Ten custodians employed at Brock University performed six cleaning tasks during two different sessions (pre-shift and post-shift). Kinematics of the upper extremity were collected, and muscle activity was recorded from 8 upper extremity muscles. Our results showed no significant changes in mean joint angles or joint range of motion pre-shift to post-shift. However, significant changes were observed in mean and peak EMG amplitudes as a result of time. Higher muscle activity was observed in the upper trapezius and FDS while lower muscle activity was found in the anterior deltoid, posterior deltoid, and EDC post-shift compared to pre-shift. This suggests that custodians use different muscular strategies to maintain task performance over the duration of a work shift. This may imply they are experiencing fatigue due to insufficient rest. This work acts as a stepping-stone into future investigations of custodial work and the adaptations over time.

Online commerce changes the way products are displayed. Bounded by less chance to present information of the product, e-retailers always face misunderstandings on the consumer side, and consequently, unfavourable consumer behaviour. This makes online retailing prone to perceived deceptive practice. Past research has mainly integrated perceived deception into existing consumer behavior theories. In the same vein, this research further examines the factors moderating the relationship between perceived deception and repurchase intention. Specifically, we tested how product type (hedonic versus utilitarian), consumer regulatory focus (promotion versus prevention), and their interaction can help mitigate perceived deception's negative effect on consumer repurchase intention. This research expands the literature on perceived deception. With the prior work establishing the negative effect of perceived deception on consumer purchase behaviour, this research further investigates the factors that may attenuate the unfavourable outcome. It also helps marketers increase repurchase rates by emphasizing the hedonic attribute and instigating promotion intention to help mitigate the negative effects of perceived deception.

Evolutionary algorithms have a tendency to overuse and exploit particular behaviours in their search for optimality, even across separate runs. The resulting set of monotonous solutions caused by this tendency is a problem in many applications. This research explores different strategies designed to encourage an interesting set of diverse behaviours while still maintaining an appreciable level of efficacy. Embodied agents are situated within an open plane and play against each other in various pursuit game scenarios. The pursuit games consist of a single predator agent and twenty prey agents, with the goal always requiring the predator to catch as many prey as possible before the time limit is reached. The predator's controller is evolved through genetic programming while the preys' controllers are hand-crafted. The fitness of a solution is first calculated in a traditional manner. Inspired by Lehman and Stanley's novelty search strategy, the fitness is then combined with the diversity of the solution to produce the final fitness score. The original fitness score is determined by the number of captured prey, and the diversity score is determined through the combination of four behaviour measurements. Among many promising results, a particular diversity-based evaluation strategy and weighting combination was found to provide solutions that exhibit an excellent balance between diversity and efficacy. The results were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, showing the emergence of diverse and effective behaviours.

This research focuses on housing in the context of growing unaffordability and increasing popularity of Airbnb in Niagara Falls, Ontario. In a city like Niagara Falls, which sees 12 million tourists annually, vacation rentals have become a highly profitable business. However, Niagara Falls is also currently experiencing a housing crisis. Airbnb complicates this crisis by perpetuating discourses in which housing is viewed primarily as a commodity. Commodification of housing, through processes of neoliberalization, financialization and securitization, inflates housing prices. More importantly, many people have accepted the unaffordability of housing because of discourses related to homeownership, mortgage debt, and asset-based welfare. These discourses normalize the commodification of housing, making processes like privatization, gentrification and Airbnb conversions seem natural, if not desirable. Housing practices based on these discourses disproportionately affect the underhoused. My research questions include: How does the hegemony of homeownership affect the housing markets in Niagara Falls? What elements of the homeownership discourse are used to describe both long-term rentals and vacation rentals in Niagara Falls? What are the consequences of these discourses for housing affordability in Niagara Falls? To answer these questions, I conducted a content and discourse analysis of city documents and city council meeting transcripts. My intent is to explain how respondents conceptualize their experiences related to vacation rental regulations in the context of housing discourses. Furthermore, I shall be analysing prominent housing discourses to examine the relationship between Airbnb and housing affordability in Niagara Falls, Ontario. My findings show that multifaceted homeownership discourses guided the discussions. All of these tend to stigmatize rentals in general, and long-term renters in particular. I conclude that the current housing system privileges homeownership at the expense of the renter population. This system, in turn, has focused on homeowners’ expectations during the Airbnb debates with little concern for how it affects housing affordability.

The exploratory behaviour issue has received considerable attention in both online and brick-and-mortar consumer behaviour literature so far. However, regarding the widely prevalent use of mobile commerce in daily life, surprisingly, mobile exploratory behaviour has seldom been investigated. It is unclear to what extent mobile commerce characteristics can facilitate explorative behaviour. Thus, this study aims to fill the gap in the extant literature by examining the positive relationship between the perceived value, namely, functional, emotional and social and exploration (diversive and specific), which in turn, directly impacts future patronage intention. Due to the pivotal role of flow state in computer-mediated and online behaviour in the extant literature, the current study set out to examine the mediation role of flow between the relationship of perceived values and divisive vs specific exploration. This thesis begins with a brief overview of the recent history of noted research elements and proposes the conceptual model based on the stimulate-organism-response (S-O-R) model. It then discussed the hypotheses development. The remaining part of the paper proceeds with details on the data collection process and the methodological approach adopted to test these relationships.

Organic viticulture challenges growers to think and act sustainably when managing variables such as weeds, pests, and overall crop production. Ongoing climate change is adding to this challenge with projected increases in extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall and drought. Cover crops can be considered as an ecosystem-based adaptation measure when chosen carefully. They can help growers mitigate effects of climate change as well as increase vineyards biodiversity. Despite their common use, local knowledge of which species work best in what conditions is lacking. Furthermore, species are seldom tested for response to drought and flood conditions in both controlled and operational settings. The first objective of this project was to evaluate the responses of nine different cover crop species to simulated drought and flood conditions under greenhouse-controlled conditions. Of the nine species, Pennisetum glaucum (pearl millet) and Melilotus officinalis (yellow clover) were the only two species to withstand both extreme conditions without being significantly affected. Trifolium alexandrinum (berseem clover), Vicia villosa (hairy vetch), and Trifolium incarnatum (crimson clover) produced higher biomass in saturated condition, while Festuca rubra (red fescue), and Thinopyrum intermedium (pubescent wheatgrass) survived the drought without visual clear symptoms except for puny plants. The second objective was to screen 13 cover crop species in two vineyards under operational settings, where weed pressure, local weather and management may influence species establishment. After the two screening years, Pennisetum glaucum, Trifolium incarnatum, Trifolium repens, Trifolium pratense, Vicia villosa, and Medicago sativa showed promising results in terms of establishment despite facing weather challenges.