A Fresh Start on Improving Economic Competitiveness and Perimeter Security

The perimeter security and economic competitiveness initiative is a bold undertaking — the first, potentially major, bilateral initiative in more than two decades.  The agenda for negotiations is intended to streamline access for people, goods and services, improve cooperation between border agencies and law enforcement officials, and alleviate the regulatory over-burden that stifles the efficiency of a highly integrated North American economy. Border issues have languished for the past decade. New monitoring and surveillance technologies, all in the name of enhanced security, frustrate rather than facilitate trade. New inspection procedures and reporting mechanisms were introduced, contributing to long line ups at border crossings and undermining the practical advantage of “Just-in-time” deliveries for tightly organized cross-border supply chains. In an age of new security threats, including from cyberspace, it makes sense to heighten surveillance and joint monitoring capacities. Likewise, the forces of globalization oblige countries like Canada and the U.S. to revitalize trade flows and break down regulatory barriers. There are no guarantees of success and much hard negotiation lies ahead.  A key ingredient will be firm, persistent political prodding from the top.  The new majority government in Ottawa should help

Keys to healthy family child care homes: Results from a cluster randomized trial

Early care and education settings, such as family child care homes (FCCHs), are important venues for children\u27s health promotion. Keys to Healthy Family Child Care Homes evaluated a FCCH-based intervention\u27s impact on children\u27s diet and physical activity. This study enrolled 496 children aged 1.5–4 years and 166 FCCH providers into a cluster-randomized control trial (intervention = 242 children/83 FCCHs, control = 254 children/83 FCCHs) conducted during 2013–2016. The 9-month intervention addressed provider health, health of the FCCH environment, and business practices, and was delivered through three workshops, three home visits, and nine phone calls. The attention control arm received a business-focused intervention. Primary outcomes were children\u27s diet quality (2 days of observed intakes summarized into Healthy Eating Index scores) and moderate to vigorous physical activity (3 days of accelerometry) at the FCCH. Secondary outcomes were child body mass index (BMI), FCCH provider health behaviors, and FCCH nutrition and physical activity environments and business practices. Repeated measures analysis, using an intent-to-treat approach, accounting for clustering of children within FCCHs and adjusting for child age, sex, and BMI, was used to evaluate change (completed in 2018). Compared to controls, intervention children significantly improved their diet quality (5.39, p = .0002, CI = 2.53, 8.26) but not MVPA (0.31, p = .195, CI = −0.16, 0.79). Intervention FCCH providers significantly improved their diet quality and several components of their FCCH environment (i.e., time provided for physical activity, use of supportive physical activity practices, and engagement in nutrition and physical activity education/professional development). FCCHs are malleable settings for health promotion, especially diet quality

OBILJEŽJA POČINITELJA NASILNIČKIH DELIKATA NA PODRUČJU PRIMORSKO-GORANSKE ŽUPANIJE OBZIROM NA POVRAT

Availability of sophisticated statistical modelling for developing robust reference equations has improved interpretation of lung function results. In 2012, the Global Lung function Initiative(GLI) published the first global all-age, multi-ethnic reference equations for spirometry but these lacked equations for those originating from the Indian subcontinent (South-Asians). The aims of this study were to assess the extent to which existing GLI-ethnic adjustments might fit South-Asian paediatric spirometry data, assess any similarities and discrepancies between South-Asian datasets and explore the feasibility of deriving a suitable South-Asian GLI-adjustment. Methods: Spirometry datasets from South-Asian children were collated from four centres in India and five within the UK. Records with transcription errors, missing values for height or spirometry, and implausible values were excluded(n=110). Results: Following exclusions, cross-sectional data were available from 8,124 children (56.3% male; 5-17 years). When compared with GLI-predicted values from White Europeans, forced expired volume in 1s (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) in South-Asian children were on average 15% lower, ranging from 4-19% between centres. By contrast, proportional reductions in FEV1 and FVC within all but two datasets meant that the FEV1/FVC ratio remained independent of ethnicity. The ‘GLI-Other’ equation fitted data from North India reasonably well while ‘GLI-Black’ equations provided a better approximation for South-Asian data than the ‘GLI-White’ equation. However, marked discrepancies in the mean lung function z-scores between centres especially when examined according to socio-economic conditions precluded derivation of a single South-Asian GLI-adjustment. Conclusion: Until improved and more robust prediction equations can be derived, we recommend the use of ‘GLI-Black’ equations for interpreting most South-Asian data, although ‘GLI-Other’ may be more appropriate for North Indian data. Prospective data collection using standardised protocols to explore potential sources of variation due to socio-economic circumstances, secular changes in growth/predictors of lung function and ethnicities within the South-Asian classification are urgently required

Brave new Canada: Meeting the challenge of a changing world

Globalization and the shifting tectonic plates of the international system have led to an increasingly competitive world. If Canada hopes to gain advantage from the dramatic developments underway it will have to aggressively adapt its foreign and domestic policies and priorities under the clear direction of the federal government or accept being left behind. In Brave New Canada, Derek Burney and Fen Hampson identify the key trends that are reshaping the world's geopolitics and economics and discuss the challenges Canada confronts with the rise of China and other global centres of power. Their examination of a wide range of themes - including the place of pluralistic democratic values in diplomacy, economics, and trade, the ways that Canada should reset relations with its neighbour to the south, as well as how to manage new global security threats - paints a picture of how Canada can become bold, assertive, and confident and easily adjust to a new global landscape. Arguing that a successful foreign policy cannot be crafted by looking at the world in the rear-view mirror, Brave New Canada offers evidence-based, provocative prescriptions for both the public and private sectors that should stimulate discussion and command widespread attention

Self-Efficacy for Healthy Eating Moderates the Impact of Stress on Diet Quality Among Family Child Care Home Providers

Objective: To examine associations of stress and sleep with diet quality of family child care home (FCCH) providers, and whether self-efficacy for healthy eating influences these associations. Design: A cross-sectional analysis was performed using baseline data (2013–2015) from a randomized control trial with FCCH providers. Participants: The study included 166 licensed FCCH providers, aged \u3e18 years, from central North Carolina. Main Outcome Measure(s): Diet quality was assessed with a food frequency questionnaire, used to calculate a modified 2010-Healthy Eating Index score. Stress, sleep quality, and diet self-efficacy were measured via self-administered questionnaires. Analysis: Using observations from 158 participants with complete data, multiple linear regression models were created to assess whether stress, sleep quality, and diet self-efficacy were associated with diet quality and whether diet self-efficacy moderated these associations (significance set at P \u3c 0.05). Results: In the initial model, only diet self-efficacy was significantly associated with diet quality (β = 0.32; P \u3c 0.001). Moderation analyses showed that higher stress was associated with lower diet quality, but only when diet self-efficacy was low. Conclusions: Building FCCH providers’ self-efficacy for healthy eating is an important component of health promotion and can buffer the impact of stress on their diet quality

Oral Glycine and Sodium Thiosulfate for Lethal Cyanide Ingestion.

ObjectiveAccidental or intentional cyanide ingestion is an-ever present danger. Rapidly acting, safe, inexpensive oral cyanide antidotes are needed that can neutralize large gastrointestinal cyanide reservoirs. Since humans cannot be exposed to cyanide experimentally, we studied oral cyanide poisoning in rabbits, testing oral sodium thiosulfate with and without gastric alkalization.SettingUniversity research laboratory.SubjectsNew Zealand white rabbits.InterventionsSeven animal groups studied; Groups 1-5 received high dose oral NaCN (50 mg, >LD100) and were treated immediately with oral (via nasogastric tube): 1) saline, 2) glycine, 3) sodium thiosulfate or 4) sodium thiosulfate and glycine, or 5) after 2 min with intramuscular injection of sodium nitrite and sodium thiosulfate plus oral sodium thiosulfate and glycine. Groups 6-7 received moderate dose oral NaCN (25 mg, LD70) and delayed intramuscular 6) saline or 7) sodium nitrite-sodium thiosulfate.Measurements and main resultsAll animals in the high dose NaCN group receiving oral saline or glycine died very rapidly, with a trend towards delayed death in glycine-treated animals; saline versus glycine-treated animals died at 10.3+3.9 and 14.6+5.9 min, respectively (p=0.13). In contrast, all sodium thiosulfate-treated high dose cyanide animals survived (p<0.01), with more rapid recovery in animals receiving both thiosulfate and glycine, compared to thiosulfate alone (p<0.03). Delayed intramuscular treatment alone in the moderate cyanide dose animals increased survival over control animals from 30% to 71%. Delayed treatment in high dose cyanide animals was not as effective as immediate treatment, but did increase survival time and rescued 29% of animals (p<0.01 versus cyanide alone).ConclusionsOral sodium thiosulfate with gastric alkalization rescued animals from lethal doses of ingested cyanide. The combination of oral glycine and sodium thiosulfate may have potential for treating high dose acute cyanide ingestion and merits further investigation. The combination of systemic and oral therapy may provide further options

Getting the message? 'New' Labour and the criminalization of 'hate'

Hate crimes, it has been said, are ‘message’ crimes to which society needs to respond using the most powerful and unambiguous means of communication at its disposal, the criminal law. Using empirical data collected in the course of research conducted by the authors on racially motivated violence and harassment in North Staffordshire, this article sets out to interpret the messages about hate crime sent to perpetrators, and people from their local communities, by the creation, in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, of a new category of racially aggravated offences. To this end two possible anti-hate crime messages and three potential audiences are identified and evaluated in the light of data generated from biographical interviews with perpetrators and focus group discussions with other local people in and around the city of Stokeon-Trent. Our conclusion is that the supposedly clear deterrent and denunciatory or declaratory messages contained in the 1998 Act are either drowned out or distorted by other signals coming from successive ‘New’ Labour governments about crime, immigration, nationality and ‘community cohesion’, and by the highly idiosyncratic and unpredictable ways in which they are mediated and interpreted by their intended recipients