Climate Change Education: An Exploration of Curriculum Enactments in Canadian Post-Secondary Educational Institutions

Climate change is indisputably one of the most pressing issues of our time. This dissertation is a study of curricula in Canadian Post-Secondary Institutions (PSIs). I conducted a survey of 225 PSIs for climate change courses during the calendar year of 2014-2015 and then focus on four PSIs with climate change programs to explore factors influencing processes of formation and implementation of climate change curricula. This research draws upon elements from literature in climate change policy, cultural studies, and curriculum studies to understand the formation of climate change programs. The study seeks to deepen understanding of institutional change in what I believe is unprecedented times. The first part of this study uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of course syllabi. Courses were coded according to their focus into Tiers-of-Concentration and Streams according to their area/discipline of concentration. The second part of this dissertation includes a series of in-depth interviews with climate change program creators, administrators, directors, faculty and faculty committee members in particular PSIs. My selection of four PSIs is based on their programs these institutions offer undergraduate and graduate climate change programs as well as their institutional reputations, inclinations and characters. Interviews with curricula innovators reveal some features shaping climate change curricula formation. I focus on four features: (1) The emergence of climate champions in bureaucratic procedures; (2) The culture of economics; (3) Disciplinary allegiances; and (4) Climate leanings. My study seeks to better understand climate change curricula innovations and cultures with a commitment to the importance of PSIs as sources of climate change expertise and leadership within democratic societies

New Trends in Using Augmented Reality Apps for Smart City Contexts

The idea of virtuality is not new, as research on visualization and simulation dates back to the early use of ink and paper sketches for alternative design comparisons. As technology has advanced so the way of visualizing simulations as well, but the progress is slow due to difficulties in creating workable simulations models and effectively providing them to the users. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, the evolving technologies that have been haunting the tech industry, receiving excessive attention from the media and colossal growing are redefining the way we interact, communicate and work together. From consumer application to manufacturers these technologies are used in different sectors providing huge benefits through several applications. In this work, we demonstrate the potentials of Augmented Reality techniques in a Smart City (Smart Campus) context. A multiplatform mobile app featuring Augmented Reality capabilities connected to GIS services are developed to evaluate different features such as performance, usability, effectiveness and satisfaction of the Augmented Reality technology in the context of a Smart Campus

Part 5: Organized Criminal Activities

This part contains references to literature that examine the activities associated with criminal organizations. This includes both strategic (i.e., profit-oriented ventures such as drug trafficking, fraud, counterfeiting, prostitution, etc.) and tactical activities (i.e., activities that support the criminal organization and its profit-oriented activities, such as money laundering, violence, corruption, etc.) References are provided for the criminal activities listed below. Within each category are also references to publications that address the control of a particular criminal activity (e.g., enforcement, prevention, laws)

The right to privacy through the development of smart technologies : how our personal health data is affected

L’évolution de la technologie, nonobstant ses apports, peut enfreindre certains de nos droits fondamentaux puisqu’elle se développe plus rapidement que ces derniers. Ce mémoire vise à relever les défis que les technologies intelligentes peuvent poser tant sur la santé des communautés que sur les droits fondamentaux. La thèse porte sur les contraintes juridiques, présentes et à venir, notamment sur le droit à la vie privée à travers le développement et l’usage des technologies intelligentes qui captent notre information personnelle en lien avec la santé. Plus précisément, ce travail analyse si les bénéfices de l’accès à notre information à travers les technologies intelligentes en vue d’améliorer la santé et la sécurité des populations surpassent les conséquences juridiques. Ce travail explore, entre autres, le potentiel des technologies intelligentes, leurs avantages individuels et collectifs, notamment en matière de santé publique, et les violations des droits de l’Homme que leur usage peut générer. Mais encore, il présente des innovations technologiques qui permettent d’améliorer les systèmes de santé étatiques afin d’être en mesure de mieux réagir aux futures épidémies, notamment au niveau international, comme à l’OMS. Ces données, suivies des autres complications possibles du fait d’un usage accru des technologies intelligentes qui restreignent notre vie privée, permettront de conclure si une telle intrusion peut être justifiée dans une société libre et démocratique. Finalement, ce travail regarde les limites de l’acceptabilité sociale de l’intrusion dans la vie privée en échange à de meilleures conditions de santé afin que les organes étatiques et supraétatiques puissent prendre des décisions éclairées, sans que les droits constitutionnels soient violés. Ce travail permettra de comprendre les enjeux que notre système judiciaire inévitablement devra surmonter en proposant des stratégies visant la prévention des maladies et autres problèmes de santé à travers l’usage des technologies intelligentes. Une des solutions principales proposées est la création de bases de données nationale et internationale à l’OMS qui captent les données des appareils intelligents portables.The evolution of technology, notwithstanding its benefits, can negatively impact some of our fundamental rights as it develops faster than the latter. Indeed, this thesis aims to meet challenges generated by smart technologies and the impact they can have on the health of communities as well as on our fundamental rights. This thesis focuses on the legal constraints, present and to come, including the right to privacy, through the development and use of smart technologies that seize our personal health information. More specifically, this work seeks to analyze whether the benefits of accessing our information through smart technologies to improve the health and safety of populations outweigh the legal consequences. This work explores the potential of smart technologies, the interest in using them individually and collectively, especially in the public health sector, and the human rights violations their use can generate. Moreover, it looks at technological innovations that help improve State health systems to be able to better respond to future epidemics, particularly at the international level, such as at the WHO. These data, followed by other possible complications due to the increased use of intelligent technologies that restrict our privacy, will allow us to conclude whether such an intrusion in our right to privacy can be justified in a free and democratic society. Finally, this work examines the limits of the social acceptability of the invasion of privacy in exchange for better health conditions so that States and supra-State bodies can make informed decisions, without violating constitutional rights. This work will help us understand the issues that our judicial system will inevitably face while proposing strategies for the prevention of diseases and other health problems through the use of smart technologies. One of the main proposed solutions is the creation of a national and international database at the WHO generated by the data of smart health devices

Trends in Global and Canadian Lawyer Education

Globalization and technology have changed the practice of law in dramatic ways. This is true not only in the U.S. and Canada, but around the world. Global regulatory trends have begun to emerge as lawyer regulators have had to respond to new developments. In 2012, Australian regulators Steve Mark and Tahlia Gordon and the author, who is a U.S. academic, documented some of these global trends in lawyer regulation. See Laurel S. Terry, Steve Mark, & Tahlia Gordon, Trends and Challenges in Lawyer Regulation: The Impact of Globalization and Technology, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 2661 (2012), https://works.bepress.com/laurel_terry/95/. Their article concluded that regulators face issues in common regarding “who” is regulated, “what” is regulated, “when” and “where” regulation occurs, “how” it occurs, and “why” it occurs. The current article examines Canadian lawyer regulation in light of the global trends Terry, Mark, and Gordon previously identified. The current article asks whether there is evidence in Canadian lawyer regulation of these same who-what-when-where-why-and-how issues. The article concludes that these trends are indeed present in Canada and explains why it is important for Canadian lawyers, regulators, clients, and other stakeholders to be aware of these global trends. The article also addresses the issue of whether these trends matter in a jurisdiction such as Saskatchewan that is not a global financial center on the order of New York, London or Toronto. The answer the article provides is “yes” – these trends are relevant to Saskatchewan and to jurisdictions throughout the world that care about lawyer regulation

A Low-Cost System Using a Big-Data Deep-Learning Framework for Assessing Physical Telerehabilitation: A Proof-of-Concept

The consolidation of telerehabilitation for the treatment of many diseases over the last decades is a consequence of its cost-effective results and its ability to offer access to rehabilitation in remote areas. Telerehabilitation operates over a distance, so vulnerable patients are never exposed to unnecessary risks. Despite its low cost, the need for a professional to assess therapeutic exercises and proper corporal movements online should also be mentioned. The focus of this paper is on a telerehabilitation system for patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease in remote villages and other less accessible locations. A full-stack is presented using big data frameworks that facilitate communication between the patient and the occupational therapist, the recording of each session, and real-time skeleton identification using artificial intelligence techniques. Big data technologies are used to process the numerous videos that are generated during the course of treating simultaneous patients. Moreover, the skeleton of each patient can be estimated using deep neural networks for automated evaluation of corporal exercises, which is of immense help to the therapists in charge of the treatment programs.This work was supported by project PI19/00670 of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NVIDIA Corporation and its donation of the TITAN Xp GPU used in this research. In addition, this work was partially supported by the European Social Fund, as the authors José Miguel Ramírez-Sanz, José Luis Garrido-Labrador, and Alicia Olivares-Gil are the recipients of a pre-doctoral grant (EDU/875/2021) from the Conserjería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León

Extending the Exposure Score of Web Browsers by Incorporating CVSS

When browsing the Internet, HTTP headers enable both clients and servers send extra data in their requests or responses such as the User-Agent string. This string contains information related to the sender’s device, browser, and operating system. Yet its content differs from one browser to another. Despite the privacy and security risks of User-Agent strings, very few works have tackled this problem. Our previous work proposed giving Internet browsers exposure relative scores to aid users to choose less intrusive ones. Thus, the objective of this work is to extend our previous work through: first, conducting a user study to identify its limitations. Second, extending the exposure score via incorporating data from the NVD. Third, providing a full implementation, instead of a limited prototype. The proposed system: assigns scores to users’ browsers upon visiting our website. It also suggests alternative safe browsers, and finally it allows updating the back-end database with a click of a button. We applied our method to a data set of more than 52 thousand unique browsers. Our performance and validation analysis show that our solution is accurate and efficient. The source code and data set are publicly available here [4].</p

Mapping Digital Media: Canada

The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs.Canadians are among the most engaged and active users of digital media in the world, and digitization has had particular consequences for such a vast, largely urbanized and sparsely populated country. Although progress in some aspects has been exemplary, geographic complexities and a lack of leadership by the federal government have produced challenges and delays in others. In particular, while Canadians lead the world in areas relating to digital media take-up, the federal government has yet to finalize an official, comprehensive digital strategy similar to the EU's Digital Agenda for Europe or the National Broadband Plan in the United States.It is essential that the federal government tables a cohesive and comprehensive Digital Economy Strategy in consultation with all stakeholders, including the public. Such a unified, forward-thinking approach is needed if Canada is to forge a comprehensive and progressive agenda for the continued development of digital media infrastructure, services, and access