Reflections on the Struggle Against the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (TFA), 30 Years Later

The implementation of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) in January 1989 marked a decisive moment in the rise of neoliberalism as a political project in Canada. While the left, and socialist political economists in particular, played a central role in galvanizing opposition to the agreement and contributed in no small part to the demise of the Conservative government in 1993, the free trade agenda continued to move forward through the 1990s. This Special Issue revisits the history of struggles against free trade in Canada with two aims in mind: first to remember the coalitions through which opposition was organized, the mobilization of socialist critiques by activists and intellectuals, and the key events leading up to the adoption of the agreement. Second, drawing from this history to make sense of how things have changed over the past 30 years, as right-wing nationalists have increasingly taken the lead in opposing free trade, while neoliberals have sought to rebrand their project as ‘progressive’.  How can those on the left effectively confront the project of free trade today while at the same time challenging both far-right nationalism and neoliberal globalization

Stability and Accuracy analysis of the θ\theta Method and 3-Point Time filter

This paper analyzes a $\theta$-method and 3-point time filter. This approach adds one additional line of code to the existing source code of $\theta$-method. We prove the method's $0$-stability, accuracy, and $A$-stability for both constant time step and variable time step. Some numerical tests are performed to validate the theoretical results.Comment: 23 pages, 3 tables,14 figure

Constructing an Ecology of Foster Care: An Analysis of the Entry and Exit Patterns of Foster Homes

This paper aims to illustrate the viability of using concepts and theoretical arguments from organization ecology to analyze dynamic change processes in foster care. The general topic is the relationship between foster homes and their environments. The specific focus is the effects of the environment on the entry and exit patterns of new foster homes. Drawing on our earlier studies of the 23 year history of a population of foster homes, various hypotheses shown to have validity in accounting for the processes underlying the founding and disbanding offormal organizations, also apply in the case of the entry and exit processes offoster homes. One important contribution of this paper is in re-asserting the role of theory in studying foster care, and in helping organize existing knowledge. A second contribution is in reminding us that foster homes should be conceptualized and studied as existing in relation to their social context. They are embedded in social and organizational communities, and the nature of this embeddedness has important implications not only for understanding their behavior but also for how they should be approached in policy terms

Local and Cooperative Autonomous Vehicle Perception from Synthetic Datasets

The purpose of this work is to increase the performance of autonomous vehicle 3D object detection using synthetic data. This work introduces the Precise Synthetic Image and LiDAR (PreSIL) dataset for autonomous vehicle perception. Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V), a commercial video game, has a large, detailed world with realistic graphics, which provides a diverse data collection environment. Existing works creating synthetic Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data for autonomous driving with GTA V have not released their datasets, rely on an in-game raycasting function which represents people as cylinders, and can fail to capture vehicles past 30 metres. This work describes a novel LiDAR simulator within GTA V which collides with detailed models for all entities no matter the type or position. The PreSIL dataset consists of over 50,000 frames and includes high-definition images with full resolution depth information, semantic segmentation (images), point-wise segmentation (point clouds), and detailed annotations for all vehicles and people. Collecting additional data with the PreSIL framework is entirely automatic and requires no human intervention of any kind. The effectiveness of the PreSIL dataset is demonstrated by showing an improvement of up to 5% average precision on the KITTI 3D Object Detection benchmark challenge when state-of-the-art 3D object detection networks are pre-trained with the PreSIL dataset. The PreSIL dataset and generation code are available at https://tinyurl.com/y3tb9sxy Synthetic data also enables data generation which is genuinely hard to create in the real world. In the next major chapter of this thesis, a new synthethic dataset, the TruPercept dataset, is created with perceptual information from multiple viewpoints. A novel system is proposed for cooperative perception, perception including information from multiple viewpoints. The TruPercept model is presented. TruPercept integrates trust modelling for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) with information from perception, with a focus on 3D object detection. A discussion is presented on how this might create a safer driving experience for fully autonomous vehicles. The TruPercept dataset is used to experimentally evaluate the TruPercept model against traditional local perception (single viewpoint) models. The TruPercept model is also contrasted with existing methods for trust modeling used in ad hoc network environments. This thesis also offers insights into how V2V communication for perception can be managed through trust modeling, aiming to improve object detection accuracy, across contexts with varying ease of observability. The TruPercept model and data are available at https://tinyurl.com/y2nwy52

TruPercept: Trust Modelling for Autonomous Vehicle Cooperative Perception from Synthetic Data

Inter-vehicle communication for autonomous vehicles (AVs) stands to provide significant benefits in terms of perception robustness. We propose a novel approach for AVs to communicate perceptual observations, tempered by trust modelling of peers providing reports. Based on the accuracy of reported object detections as verified locally, communicated messages can be fused to augment perception performance beyond line of sight and at great distance from the ego vehicle. Also presented is a new synthetic dataset which can be used to test cooperative perception. The TruPercept dataset includes unreliable and malicious behaviour scenarios to experiment with some challenges cooperative perception introduces. The TruPercept runtime and evaluation framework allows modular component replacement to facilitate ablation studies as well as the creation of new trust scenarios we are able to show

Analysis of Time Filters in Multistep Methods

Geophysical flow simulations have evolved sophisticated implicit-explicit time stepping methods (based on fast-slow wave splittings) followed by time filters to control any unstable models that result. Time filters are modular and parallel. Their effect on stability of the overall process has been tested in numerous simulations, but never analyzed. Stability is proven herein for the Crank-Nicolson Leapfrog (CNLF) method with the Robert-Asselin (RA) time filter and for the Crank-Nicolson Leapfrog method with the Robert-Asselin-Williams (RAW) time filter for systems by energy methods. We derive an equivalent multistep method for CNLF+RA and CNLF+RAW and stability regions are obtained. The time step restriction for energy stability of CNLF+RA is smaller than CNLF and CNLF+RAW time step restriction is even smaller. Numerical tests find that RA and RAW add numerical dissipation. This thesis also shows that all modes of the Crank-Nicolson Leap Frog (CNLF) method are asymptotically stable under the standard timestep condition

Intravenous iron increases labile serum iron but does not impair forearm blood flow reactivity in dialysis patients

Intravenous iron increases labile serum iron but does not impair forearm blood flow reactivity in dialysis patients.BackgroundThere are concerns about adverse vascular effects of intravenous iron by inducing oxidative stress. We therefore examined the effect of a single high dose of intravenous iron on endothelial function and biochemical markers of iron homeostasis.MethodsIn a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel-group study, forearm blood flow (FBF) was assessed by strain-gauge plethysmography in 38 peritoneal dialysis patients before and after a single intravenous infusion of 300mg iron sucrose.ResultsIron infusion increased total (Δ 601 μg/100mL, CI 507, 696) and non-transferrin-bound iron (Δ 237.2 μmol/L, CI 173.6, 300.8) approximately 10-fold, as well as redox-active iron nearly five-fold (Δ 0.76 μmol/L, CI 0.54, 0.98). After iron infusion basal FBF was 59% higher than after placebo. FBF response to acetylcholine before and after iron infusion was 263 ± 32% and 310 ± 33%, corresponding to 304 ± 43% and 373 ± 29% in the placebo group, respectively. Before and after iron or placebo infusion, glyceryl-trinitrate increased resting FBF to 232 ± 22% and 258 ± 21% in the iron group, and to 234 ± 18% and 270 ± 30% in the placebo group. L-N-monomethyl-arginine decreased FBF to 70 ± 4% and 72 ± 3% before and after iron, and to 74 ± 4% and 73 ± 4% before and after placebo infusions, respectively. Despite higher basal FBF after iron infusion, absolute and relative FBF changes in response to vasoactive substances were not significantly different between iron and placebo groups.ConclusionOur data suggest that 300mg intravenous iron sucrose has a vasodilatory effect, but does not impair vascular reactivity in dialysis patients, despite a significant increase in non-transferrin-bound and redox-active iron