A Critical Analysis on R. v. Orr in Understanding the Management of Human Trafficking in Immigration and Refugee Claims in Canada

Labour exploitation is a form of human trafficking, which is a serious offence in Canada. More and more immigrants, refugees and migrant workers are vulnerable to labour exploitation. To further understand this issue on how the federal government manages such cases of human trafficking, a qualitative analysis was conducted by looking at the effectiveness of anti-human trafficking policies and practices to determine whether they are contributing more harm than good to the vulnerable population, or vice versa. By analyzing the significant R v. Orr case, it is observed that permit programs lack supporting services in monitoring the living of immigrants. In addition, there is an insufficient amount of victim services for exploited persons to receive protection. Immigration officers also do not acquire the technique to correctly identify potential victims at the borders. Legally, victims suffered from great loss when going against the accused on trials with huge financial costs, and legal officials tend to determine the guilt of the accused based on the credibility of the victims and not the traffickers. Reforms are required in improving the policies and practices to reach the goal of providing welfare to immigrants and preventing them to be trafficked. Increasing the amount and geographic coverage of victim services is one of the suggested improvements, and the current Open Work Permit (OWP) is an alternative permit program in benefiting new immigrants. Future research could focus on the anti-sex trafficking policies, or looking at the limitations of OWP in combating human trafficking

Game of translations: virtual community doing English translations of Chinese online fiction

Fan translations are an important part of global fan subculture activity, intensified especially through the new media platforms which connect producers and consumers all around the globe. One recent trend within this category is that of English translations of Chinese online fictions. It is a newly emerging form of activity which takes place on blogs connected through a blogroll. Through these channels, fans comprising blog moderators, translators, and readers can engage in exchanges which add value to the appreciation of literature. Thus, it can be imagined as a ‘virtual settlement’ (Jones, 1997) after Anderson (1983)’s ‘imagined community’. Within this community, a further observation can be made about the mechanics of this practice. Like a game, the fans act as players where they negotiate rules regarding the production of translations. Given the community-centric nature of these websites, my paper outlines the formation of ‘illusio’, or “agreed rules of the game”, a concept introduced by Bourdieu. This is operationalised using Järvinen (2007)’s framework, locating the nine elements of a ‘gamified practice’ within the interactions of this community, known as Shusheng Bar. The findings suggest that members of Shusheng Bar possess a shared history and connected future. The significance of this observation assists in understanding the dynamics of online subcultures.&nbsp

Making climate change meaningful: Narrative dissonance and the gap between knowledge and action

Decades of widespread knowledge about climate change have not translated into adequate action to address population health and health equity impacts in Canada. Researchers find that perceptions and interpretations mediate engagement. Exploring climate change engagement thus involves inquiry into contextual experience. This qualitative study employs narrative methodology to interpret the meaning of climate change among community leaders in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, age 20-40 (n=10). Climate change narratives are explored both structurally and thematically. A model was developed to organize results and to describe concepts of fidelity and dissonance within participant narratives. Findings suggest that knowledge of climate change and personal motivation to act do not preclude narrative dissonance, which serves as a barrier to a meaningful personal response. Dissonance can result where internal and external barriers mediate mobilization at moments in the plot: (1) moving from knowledge of the challenge to a sense of agency about it; (2) from agency to a sense of responsibility to choose to address it; (3) from responsibility to a sense of capacity to produce desirable outcomes despite contextual challenges; and (4) from capacity to a moral sense of activation in context. Without narrative fidelity, meaningful mobilization can be hindered. A narrative model is useful for exploring climate change engagement and highlights opportunities for population health to reframe climate change in a mobilizing way. By framing climate change narratives with emotional and moral logic, population health could help young leaders overcome internal and external barriers to engagement

Augmenting a Firefighters PPE -- Gas Mask SCBA

PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) has allowed firefighters to perform their everyday tasks without getting harmed since the mid 1800s. Now, the advancement of technology has given rise to the improvements of PPE. PPE can now include sensors to detect any number of environmental hazards (chemical, biological, temperature etc.). As the GT class of CS3750, we have decided to create a version of an interface design sensor that will help firefighters in two ways: navigation and communication. In order to augment a firefighter display when they are within a building, we chose to augment their SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus). The gas mask will include a small screen that displays vital information directly towards the firefighter without need of any other support. We used the Google Glass to display vital information directly towards the eye in a minimalistic manner, while also augmenting that by adding LED lights to simulate someone calling their name or other auditory signals.While our prototype focuses on two main components of a firefighters search and rescue in a building, both of them combine to augment a firefighters display when searching throughout a building to help improve accuracy, speed and overall experience

Multi-beam miniaturized volumetric scanning microscopy with a single 1-dimensional actuation

Miniaturized optical imaging systems often use a 2-dimensional (2-D) actuator such as a piezoelectric tube or microelectromechanical system actuator for the acquisition of 2-D and higher dimensional images over an areal field of view (FOV). Piezoelectric tubes are the most compact, but usually produce impractical sub-millimetre FOVs and are difficult to fabricate at scale, leading to high costs. Planar piezoelectric bending actuators ('benders') are substantially lower cost and capable of much larger actuations, albeit 1-dimensional (1-D) and traditionally inadequate for 2-D steering tasks. We present a piezoelectric bender imaging system that exploits mechanical motion coupling to produce multi-millimetre scale 2-D scan coverage. Leveraging optical coherence tomography with a long coherence length laser, we further extend the FOV using three depth-multiplexed imaging beams from optical fibres resonating in synchronicity across the width of the bender. Each fibre had a FOV of ~2.1 x 1.5 mm, contributing to a stitched field of ~2.1 x 2.9 mm with a beam resolution of 12.6 um full-width at half-maximum. Imaging of biological samples including stomach tissue, an ant and cell spheroids was performed. This multi-fold improvement in imaging coverage and cost-effectiveness promises to accelerate the advent of piezoelectric scanning in compact devices such as endoscopes for biomedicine, and headsets for augmented/virtual reality and neuroscience

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) on the tibialis anterior muscle and the effects on strength and gait mechanics on stroke patients: A systematic review.

Purpose: To establish the effects of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) on the tibialis anterior muscle (TA) on chronic stroke patients in order to improve gait mechanics. Subjects: 6 Materials & Methods: A systematic search of Pubmed, PEDro, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library was conducted to identify all pertinent randomized control trials (RCTs). RCTs that met the inclusion criteria were then assessed using the 11-point PEDro scale. Studies were assessed by two raters, and articles that scored 6 or above were accepted for review. Results: The initial search yielded 34 articles: 21 were pulled for data extraction, six met selected inclusion and exclusion criteria. PEDro scores for selected articles range from 6 to 9, with a mean score of 6.8. Conclusions: Studies varied widely in parameters of application and prescription of NMES and baseline characteristics of subjects. Research supports the use of NMES to treat impairments of the TA following stroke, such as ankle range of motion and TA strength, as well as functional parameters, such as Fugl-Meyer Assessment scores, obstacle avoidance, and modified Emory Functional Ambulation Profile. However, these results were equivalent to outcomes using ankle-foot orthoses (AFO) or conventional rehabilitation program (CRP). In conclusion, NMES improved gait mechanics in patients with chronic stroke, but was not superior when compared with AFO or CRP. Clinical Relevance: This systematic review demonstrates that NMES improves gait mechanics in chronic stroke patients, however, is no more effective than CRP or AFO interventions

Production and characterization of biopowders made from gel-forming polymers

To date, many bioactive compounds have been encapsulated within microparticles to achieve specific purpose such as stabilization, protection, isolation, controlled-release, taste-masking, improving aesthetic and handling qualities. However, much work is still needed particularly to determine the way to control the size and shape of microparticles produced using the air-atomization method. In addition, the effect of drying on the properties of dried biopowders has yet to be evaluated. These problems form the missing gap that will be addressed by this project. In this work, alginate was chosen as a model polymeric material to form the biopowders. The first part of this work was to determine the key physical properties of the polymer solution since they have significant influence on the characteristics (i.e. size) of the particles formed. The density of Na-alginate solution increased slightly as the alginate concentration increased whereas the solution apparent viscosity at zero shear rates exhibited a typical exponential increment. A new method, LCP coefficient method, to measure surface tension of viscous biopolymer solutions has been developed. The surface tension at low alginate concentration (5 -20 g/L) was about 68 -72mN/m and it showed a decreasing trend as the concentration increased. Air-assist external mixing atomization with low mair/rituqwas developed to produce wet particles of wide range of mean diameters, from 50 to 2300 µm. A semi-empirical size prediction model was developed to assist and enhanced the productivity of desired size by changing the physical properties of the operating conditions. Increased in Weber number produced smaller particles size, wider particles size distribution and more spherical particles. Finally, biopowders were formed by drying the wet particles. The results showed that drying temperature, intermittent mixing, sample thickness and wet particle size were among factors affecting the drying kinetics. Effective diffusivity value of wet alginate particles was ranged from 5.4 x 10·10 to 8.0 x 10·9 m2/s while the activation energy was ranged from 15 to 20 KJ/mol. The drying kinetic was modelled according to a logarithmic model. In addition, smaller wet particles (75 µm) were found to agglomerate during the oven-drying process whereas larger particles (1300 µm) did not agglomerate. Freeze­drying process did not cause agglomeration for both particle sizes. The type of drying method (oven-drying or freeze-drying) was found to have significant influence on the size, size distribution and physical appearance of the biopowders formed