Studying Canada in Cuba, Studying Cuba in Canada: A Roundtable Discussion

Canada and Cuba have a long historical relationship, in governmental and non-governmental realms alike. While hundreds of Canadian students take part in educational exchanges from a variety of Canadian universities, Canadian/Cuban scholarly ties are not as strong as they are in the US or even the UK.  There are a handful of internationally recognized Cuba scholars who have been working in Canada for some decades, among them John M. Kirk, Hal Klepak and Keith Ellis. Cuban scholarship in Canada is still notably scant and it cannot really be classified in generational terms. However it is clear that the work of these senior scholars is bearing fruit, as other scholars located in Canada are increasingly working in Cuban Studies, in both teaching and research.    A few of these scholars came together recently to discuss their experiences. This isn’t an exhaustive or representative group. The participants in this roundtable conversation include those trained as Cubanists, trained in other fields but with more recent research and/or teaching ties to Cuba, and a Cuban educated in Canada.  We came together to discuss what we see as the state of the field in Cuban/Canadian studies today and in the future.   &nbsp

Points saillants du rapport préliminaire sur le statut des étudiantes graduées en histoire au Canada

Dans le cadre du congrès des Sociétés savantes tenu à Victoria en Colombie- Britannique, on nous a demandé de participer en tant que groupe de femmes étudiantes à une séance de discussion portant sur la place de la femme dans la profession d’historien

Understanding the limit concept: Beginning with a coordinated process scheme.

Many authors have provided evidence for what appears to be common knowledge among mathematics teachers: The limit concept presents major difficulties for most students and they have very little success in understanding this important mathematical idea. We believe that a program of research into how people learn such a topic can point to pedagogical strategies that can help improve this situation. This paper is an attempt to contribute to such a program. Specifically, our goal in this report is to apply our theoretical perspective, our own mathematical knowledge, and our analyses of observations of students studying limits to do two things. First, we will reinterpret some points in the literature and second, we will move forward on developing a description, or genetic decomposition, of how the limit concept can be learned. In discussing the literature, we will suggest a new variation of a dichotomy, considered by various authors, between dynamic or process conceptions of limits and static or formal conceptions. We will also propose some explanations of why these conceptions are so difficult for students to construct. In describing the evolution of a genetic decomposition for the limit concept, we will give examples of how we used our analysis of interviews of 25 students from a calculus course to make appropriate modifications. Outline of article This paper is organized in five sections. We begin with very brief descriptions of our research paradigm and our theoretical perspective which we refer to as the APOS theory. The next two sections are the heart of the paper. They consist of a consideration of some points from the literature and a description of the evolution of a genetic decomposition of the limit concept. Finally we offer some pedagogical suggestions for instruction that could relate to how the limit concept can be learned. A research paradigm Our overall paradigm for doing this kind of research has been described in detail in Dubinsky (1992a), so we need only sketch it here (se

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of coenzyme Q10 in Huntington disease

Objective: To test the hypothesis that chronic treatment of early-stage Huntington disease (HD) with high-dose coenzyme Q10 (CoQ) will slow the progressive functional decline of HD. Methods: We performed a multicenter randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Patients with early-stage HD (n = 609) were enrolled at 48 sites in the United States, Canada, and Australia from 2008 to 2012. Patients were randomized to receive either CoQ 2,400 mg/d or matching placebo, then followed for 60 months. The primary outcome variable was the change from baseline to month 60 in Total Functional Capacity score (for patients who survived) combined with time to death (for patients who died) analyzed using a joint-rank analysis approach. Results: An interim analysis for futility revealed a conditional power of <5% for the primary analysis, prompting premature conclusion in July 2014. No statistically significant differences were seen between treatment groups for the primary or secondary outcome measures. CoQ was generally safe and well-tolerated throughout the study. Conclusions: These data do not justify use of CoQ as a treatment to slow functional decline in HD