The Forest and its Trees: A Critical Inquiry into the Use of Nature-based Solutions in Canada’s A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy Plan

Nature-based solutions (NbS) and natural climate solutions (NCS) have emerged as promising options to address the challenges of the global climate and biodiversity crises. However, confusion persists about the meaning and practical implications of these relatively new approaches in the public, private, and political spheres. This research paper explores how the Government of Canada conceptualizes NbS and NCS, first through a scoping review of literature regarding the conceptual definitions and limits of NbS and NCS, and then through a directed content analysis of their 2020 climate plan, titled A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy (HEHE). This research determines that the NbS and NCS concepts are frequently confused or treated as interchangeable by the Government of Canada to the detriment of the HEHE plan’s strategies. The implications of these findings are discussed. The paper concludes with recommendations for improved design and deployment of NbS and NCS in Canada

With a Little Help from My Friends: Jewish Mutual Assistance in Nineteenth-Century Maine

Jews in 19th-century Maine relied on familial, ethnic, and, to a lesser degree, institutional networks of mutual assistance to survive and thrive. These Jews, who commonly worked as merchants of clothing and other dry goods, counted on family members to get them through hard times and hired fellow Jews to peddle their wares in the countryside. Jewish peddlers and merchants regularly borrowed or loaned cash and goods on credit within a small, tightly knit community that extended across Maine and as far as Boston and New York. Commercial networks also reinforced familial ties as children and in-laws entered the family business, often marrying their father’s employees or business partners. In Bangor and Portland, Jews formed associations—the Ahawas Achim synagogue in 1849 and a chapter of the B’nai B’rith fraternal organization in 1874, respectively—designed to care for ill, deceased, and widowed community members as well as to attend to religious and cultural needs. Although both of these early institutions dissolved within seven to eight years of their founding, and many of their members migrated out of the state, the Jews who settled in Maine before 1880 laid the foundations for communities and organizations that remain vibrant to this day. The present study draws on the records of these institutions and credit reports of approximately 150 individual Jewish businessmen from towns throughout the state, along with census records and local or family histories. David M. Freidenreich is the Pulver Family Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College, where he serves as director of the Jewish studies program and associate director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life. He is also the founder of Colby’s Maine Jewish History Project (web.colby.edu/jewsinmaine/),which fosters research on Jewish life in Maine by student and community historians. As a member of the religious studies department, he teaches a wide range of courses on Judaism, Jewish history, and comparative religion. After receiving a B.A. from Brandeis University, he earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Most of his scholarship explores attitudes toward adherents of foreign religions within premodern Christian, Jewish, and Islamic sources. Kristin Esdale graduated from Colby College in2016 with a major in chemistry and a minor in Jewish studies. She currently teaches high school science at an international boarding school in Germany

An Analysis of Higher-Order Thinking Requirement of the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT

As educators and school leaders work towards building students’ capacity throughout a student\u27s academic career, the goal is to facilitate opportunities for students to develop college and career readiness skills that can be applied to novel and challenging problems long after high school graduation. Hess’ Cognitive Rigor Matrix (HCRM) is a tool that objectively and effectively measures prompts, learning exercises, or test questions by blending the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. Thus, a learning environment that cultivates higher-order thinking skills can be accurately examined and provide educators, researchers, and school leaders with data to make more informed decisions about delivering instruction and proficiently assessing the students\u27 college and career readiness. Increasingly, the culture of education in the United States has been impacted by the results of high-stakes standardized testing. Essentially, the significance of the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test and National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) has grown to influence a student’s academic trajectory, a high school’s evaluation. The PSAT/NMSQT has also contributed to a standardized testing industry and test-prep industry that has blossomed into the billion-dollar range. Moreover, the PSAT/NMSQT purportedly measures a student’s college and career readiness. Given the vast scope and depth of consequences that accompany students’ PSAT/NMSQT scores, the exam’s claims to examine career and college readiness skills were thoroughly investigated through the lens of qualitative document analysis. The study was able to identify and quantify the higher-order thinking skills of the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT assessed on the examination using subject-specific HCRMs. This research has added an objective measure of the language used on the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT and found that the extent to which higher-order thinking is being used on the exam does not support its stated purpose of assessing college readiness. The researchers methodically and systematically reviewed the language of each question on the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT through the lens of subject-specific HCRMs to determine the overall level of cognitive rigor of the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT and the level of cognitive rigor of each section (Reading, Writing, and Math). Overall, 31.6% of the questions in the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT contained language compared to the specified HCRMs definition of higher-order thinking. Significantly, most questions (51.8%) on the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT required test-takers to simply apply skills and concepts to solve the test question. The study concluded that the PSAT/NMSQT should look to enhance the math section in order to improve the cognitive rigor required to complete the test question. Additionally, local education agencies should create more effective learning experiences for their students to practice higher-order thinking skills rather than relying on a high-stakes standardized test. Lastly, Hess’ Cognitive Rigor Matrix is a well-acquitted, fully researched measurement tool that can be applied to local assessments and develop a culture of deeper learning through a validated, yet differentiated catalog of data-driven assessments that inspires students to engage in challenging learning experiences

Tumour cells surviving in vivo cisplatin chemotherapy display elevated c-myc expression.

The c-myc oncogene has been extensively implicated in cell proliferation, cell differentiation and programmed cell death. Aberrant expression of the c-myc gene product has been observed in a range of tumours and has also been implicated in cisplatin (cis-dichlorodiammineplatinum)-mediated chemoresistance. A solid transplantable tumour model in syngeneic DA rats was subjected to treatment with cisplatin to determine the impact of such therapy on endogenous c-myc gene expression. Serially transplanted tumours were intravenously treated with a single cisplatin dose (1 mg/kg) and c-myc expression analysed 2 and 7 days after treatment. The surviving tumour cells display a significant 2-fold elevation in c-myc expression at 48 h and 7 days after treatment. Primary cell cultures have been derived from untreated in vivo tumours of the same model and subjected to treatment with a c-myc phosphorothioate antisense oligomer. Administration of 5 microM c-myc antisense oligomer directed at the initiation codon and first four codons of c-myc mRNA results in total inhibition of c-myc expression and coincident suspension of cell growth for a period of 4 days in culture. Antisense therapies directed at the c-myc gene may well prove an effective tool for treating tumours in conjunction with cisplatin as these findings show that tumour cells surviving cisplatin chemotherapy display elevated c-myc expression

Impacts of dietary forage and crude protein levels on the shedding of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria in dairy cattle feces

Shedding of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes in ruminant manure is well reported. However, the influence of dietary manipulation on the shedding of the pathogens is not well understood. This study was conducted to improve the understanding of the relationship between dietary feed composition and pathogen shedding in dairy feces, particularly E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes. Twelve cows were randomly assigned to a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of 2 dietary forage levels: low forage (37.4% of dry matter [DM]) vs. high forage (HF, 53.3% of DM) and two dietary crude protein (CP) levels: low protein (LP, 15.2% of DM) vs. high protein (HP, 18.5% of DM) in a 4 × 4 replicated Latin square design with four periods each including 15 d adaptation and 3 d sample collection. In CP treatments, significantly low concentrations of L. monocytogenes were observed from cows fed the HP (0.9-1.6 log10 cfu/g) compared to the LP diet (1.3–2.1 log10 cfu/g). Significant interaction effect was observed between dietary forage and crude protein on the presence of E. coli O157:H7 (P < 0.05) but not on L. monocytogenes. On average, the highest E. coli O157:H7 concentration (6.5 log10 cfu/g of feces) was observed from the HF and HP diet and the lowest concentration was 6.2 log10cfu/g from the HF and LP diet. The average L. monocytogenes shedding was within the range of 1.8 to 2.4 log 10cfu/g among the treatments. The study showed that diet has an influence on the shedding of pathogenic bacteria in dairy excreta