Drawers of Oil, Farmers of Wind? Common Sense, National Identity and Rural Landscapes in Canadian Climate Politics

Despite the growing global consensus on the need for action to combat climate change, transitions to more sustainable practices will not be simple. This is especially true in the case of Canada which is a) country that has increasingly relied on its fossil fuel sector as a primary driver of economic growth, and b) a federal state where the division of power over the energy and resource sectors are shared between the federal and provincial governments. Further complicating this is Canada’s long history of natural resource extraction and its connection to Canadian national identity. After a decade of assertive support for the oil sector by the federal Conservative Party, the Liberal Party won a majority government partly due to promises to take meaningful climate action. However, despite these promises the Liberals have continued to wholeheartedly back the industry centred in the Alberta oil sands, and attempts to balance climate action with support for the oil industry has seen the balance swing heavily in favour of the latter. The ability of the oil industry and its allies in civil society to equate it with Canadian national identity and ‘common sense’ has entrenched its hegemony in the Canadian economy. In Ontario, the policies of a clean energy transition primarily via wind energy initiated by former Premier Dalton McGuinty have been successfully challenged by opposition at both the municipal and provincial level. One of the major obstacles has been that wind energy projects clash with, rather than fit into, ideas of rurality and what Canada is. These case studies highlight the challenges involved in green transitions, particularly in locations where natural resource extraction has historically been a central component of national identity and the national economy

The Female and Male Adolescent Breast

The breast is an important organ system for the adolescent female and occasionally for the adolescent male as well. This chapter reviews basic principles of breast concerns and disorders including congenital anomalies, asymmetric breast development, underdeveloped breasts, virginal hypertrophy, breast masses, mastaglia, galactorrhea, gynecomastia in males, and others. Clinicians should be attuned to issues and concerns for this important structure in adolescents

Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Adolescence

High rates of unprotected sexual behavior in adolescents result in millions of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the world. This paper reviews factors inducing high STD rates, specific STDs, and their management based on 2010 US Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) STD guidelines. Clinicians should screen all their sexually active adolescent patients for STDs and provide preventive education as well as treatment measures

Pregnancy in Adolescence

Over 14 million adolescents in the world annually give birth and nearly 800.000 adolescents in the United States become pregnant each year. This paper considers concepts of teen pregnancy including risks to the mother as well as offspring, the adolescent father, issues related to abortion, and concepts of prevention of unwanted pregnancy in youth. Adolescent pregnancy is a global phenomenon affecting all societies and cultures

Adolescent Female Menstrual Disorders

This paper reviews basic concepts of menstrual disorders in adolescents beginning with an overview of menstrual physiology followed by consideration of various abnormal menstrual patterns: amenorrhea (primary and secondary), dysfunctional uterine bleeding, dysmenorrhea (primary and secondary), and premenstrual syndrome

Adolescence and Contraception

The age of adolescence is the time when most adolescents in the world become sexually active with resultant millions of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. This paper considers methods of contraception for these adolescents, including oral contraceptions, transdermal contraception, mini-pills, intravaginal ring, injectable contraception, intrauterine devices, barrier contraceptives, implants, and others. It is important for clinicians caring for sexually active youth to provide information regarding contraception and appropriate contraceptive prescriptions

Nuevos métodos de tintura en frio para lana.

Este trabajo se inició como un estudio de la influencia de la urea en el proceso de tintura. Se investigaron los efectos de la urea sobre fibras y colorantes, teniendo presente sus dos posibles factores. 1. Las soluciones de urea hinchan la lana permitiendo el fácil acceso del colorante. 2. La urea dispersa y disgrega el colorante permitiendo un acceso más facil de las especies monomoleculares.Peer Reviewe

Unraveling Moral Reasoning in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: How Emotional Detachment Modifies Moral Judgment

In the last decade, scientific literature provided solid evidence of cognitive deficits in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients and their effects on end-life choices. However, moral cognition and judgment are still poorly investigated in this population. Here we aimed at evaluating both socio-cognitive and socio-affective components of moral reasoning in a sample of 28 ALS patients. Patients underwent clinical and neuropsychological evaluation including basic cognitive and social cognition measures. Additionally, we administered an experimental task including moral dilemmas, with instrumental and incidental conditions. Patients’ performances were compared with a control group [healthy control (HC)], including 36 age-, gender-, and education-matched healthy subjects. Despite that the judgment pattern was comparable in ALS and HC, patients resulted less prone to carry out a moral transgression compared to HC. Additionally, ALS patients displayed higher levels of moral permissibility and lower emotional arousal, with similar levels of engagement in both instrumental and incidental conditions. Our findings expanded the current literature about cognitive deficits in ALS, showing that in judging moral actions, patients may present non-utilitarian choices and emotion flattening. Such a decision-making profile may have relevant implications in applying moral principles in real-life situations and for the judgment of end-of-life treatments and care in clinical settings

Different FDG-PET metabolic patterns at single-subject level in the behavioral variant of fronto-temporal dementia.

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of probable behavioral variant of fronto-temporal dementia (bvFTD) according to current criteria requires the imaging evidence of frontal and/or anterior temporal atrophy or hypoperfusion/hypometabolism. Different variants of this pattern of brain involvement may, however, be found in individual cases, supporting the presence of heterogeneous phenotypes. OBJECTIVE: We examined in a case-by-case approach the FDG-PET metabolic patterns of patients fulfilling clinical criteria for probable bvFTD, assessing the presence and frequency of specific FDG-PET features. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty two FDG-PET scans of probable bvFTD patients were retrospectively analyzed together with clinical and neuropsychological data. Neuroimaging experts rated the FDG-PET hypometabolism maps obtained at the single-subject level with optimized voxel-based Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM). The functional metabolic heterogeneity was further tested by hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis (PCA). RESULTS: Both the SPM maps and cluster analysis identified two major variants of cerebral hypometabolism, namely the "frontal" and the "temporo-limbic", which were correlated with different cognitive profiles. Executive and language deficits were the cognitive hallmark in the "frontal" subgroup, while poor encoding and recall on long-term memory tasks was typical of the "temporo-limbic" subgroup. DISCUSSION: SPM single-subject analysis indicates distinct patterns of brain dysfunction in bvFTD, coupled with specific clinical features, suggesting different profiles of neurodegenerative vulnerability. These findings have important implications for the early diagnosis of bvFTD and for the application of the recent international consensus criteria