The Constitutional Law of Equality in Canada

On April 17, 1982, Canada repatriated its constitution from the Parliament at Westminster, sweeping away one of the final vestiges of its colonial past. At the same time, a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was constitutionally entrenched, giving the people express constitutional rights for the first time. The equality provisions, in particular, represented a new era in Canadian constitutional law. The intense debate leading up to the entrenchment of the Charter raised profound questions about the basic nature of the country, its values, and its ability and willingness to acknowledge equality for women and other disadvantaged groups. Since the entrenchment of the Charter in 1982, equality seekers have continued to play a significant role. They have used litigation and other strategies in order to clarify and develop approaches to constitutional theory and interpretation so that the Charter\u27s promise of equality will be realized. From the outset, they recognized that entrenched comprehensive equality rights would not bring about legal equality on their own; in order for people to become true equal bearers of rights under the Charter, the content of established rights and concepts would have to be challenged, and the legal norms of existing societal and institutional structures premised on inequality would have to be changed. It is the Author\u27s view that the Supreme Court of Canada, to quite a remarkable degree, has recognized the egalitarian challenge the Charter presents. In the past few years, the Court has launched a promising new era for equality jurisprudence quite unique in the world. The equality theory developed by the Court goes far beyond that which underlies the constitutional law of other western societies, including Europe and the United States. The Court has fashioned principles that give disadvantaged groups a better chance than ever before to alleviate the inequities they experience in laws, policies, and the practices of governments and government officials. This is because, instead of using abstract, formal rules to analyze equality and discrimination, the Canadian Supreme Court applies a purposive, contextual approach to constitutionally entrenched equality guarantees, which in turn defines the scope and purpose of these guarantees in terms of individuals and groups persistently disadvantaged by the legal system. To fully understand the Canadian approach to Charter equality guarantees, the history of equality and discrimination law must be examined. To a large extent, the Supreme Court\u27s interpretation of constitutional equality guarantees in the Charter has been informed and influenced by the lessons and themes which have emerged from the common law, human rights legislation, and earlier attempts at constitutional reform. In this Article, I discuss the development of legal equality in Canada, including pre-Charter recognition of the concepts of equality, inequality, and discrimination, as well as post-Charter interpretations of constitutional equality guarantees. I also discuss the effects of the Supreme Court\u27s constitutional-equality jurisprudence beyond constitutional law—effects which may ultimately hold the greatest promise for the achievement of social equality in Canada

Theses and dissertations on the geology of Oregon : bibliography and index, 1899-1982

The present bibliography is the third compilation by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) of theses and dissertations containing information on the geology of the state. It follows and incorporates the Bibliography of Theses on Oregon Geology by H.G. Schlicker (DOGAMI Miscellaneous Paper 7, 1959) and the Bibliography of Theses and Dissertations on Oregon Geology from January 1, 1959 to December 31, 1965, by M. Roberts (Supplement to DOGAMI Miscellaneous Paper 7, 1966). The considerable in­crease in the number of titles, from 137 in Schlicker and 70 in Roberts to the present 662 titles, reflects both the welcome growth of geologic study of the state and renewed attempts to improve the completeness of the older bibliographies. The years "1899-1982" in the title are meant to indicate that the listed titles are dated within this time span. We have not found any thesis dated before 1899; and we know that theses completed in most recent years, especially 1982, did not all come to our attention before this bibliography went to press. This compilation consists of an alphabetic list by author and an index map. Entries are numbered in sequence, and the index map is keyed to those numbers. For most theses, the numbers are placed on the map, as exactly as practicable, in the coun­ties, quadrangles, or quadrangle portions of the respective study areas. In those cases where the study area is too large or where the subject cannot be located geographically, the thesis numbers are listed under a few index categories on the map margin. The DOGAMI library maintains a growing collection of significant theses and dissertations for in-house use. About 56 percent of the titles listed here are currently in this collection. Abstracts of new acquisitions are periodically printed in DOGAMI's monthly magazine Oregon Geology. Apart from access through the libraries of degree-granting institutions, copies of many doctoral dissertations and a growing number of master's theses are available from University Microfilms Inter-national at Ann Arbor, Michigan. The compilation of this bibliography has been aided con­siderably by the information supplied by a great many geosci­ence departments in colleges and universities across the coun­try. We are deeply grateful to all of them for their cooperation

Situating dissemination and implementation sciences within and across the translational research spectrum

The efficient and effective movement of research into practice is acknowledged as crucial to improving population health and assuring return on investment in healthcare research. The National Center for Advancing Translational Science which sponsors Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) recognizes that dissemination and implementation (D&I) sciences have matured over the last 15 years and are central to its goals to shift academic health institutions to better align with this reality. In 2016, the CTSA Collaboration and Engagement Domain Task Force chartered a D&I Science Workgroup to explore the role of D&I sciences across the translational research spectrum. This special communication discusses the conceptual distinctions and purposes of dissemination, implementation, and translational sciences. We propose an integrated framework and provide real-world examples for articulating the role of D&I sciences within and across all of the translational research spectrum. The framework\u27s major proposition is that it situates D&I sciences as targeted sub-sciences of translational science to be used by CTSAs, and others, to identify and investigate coherent strategies for more routinely and proactively accelerating research translation. The framework highlights the importance of D&I thought leaders in extending D&I principles to all research stages

Genotype-Phenotype Correlation in NF1: Evidence for a More Severe Phenotype Associated with Missense Mutations Affecting NF1 Codons 844–848

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a common genetic disorder with a birth incidence of 1:2,000–3,000, is characterized by a highly variable clinical presentation. To date, only two clinically relevant intragenic genotype-phenotype correlations have been reported for NF1 missense mutations affecting p.Arg1809 and a single amino acid deletion p.Met922del. Both variants predispose to a distinct mild NF1 phenotype with neither externally visible cutaneous/plexiform neurofibromas nor other tumors. Here, we report 162 individuals (129 unrelated probands and 33 affected relatives) heterozygous for a constitutional missense mutation affecting one of five neighboring NF1 codons—Leu844, Cys845, Ala846, Leu847, and Gly848—located in the cysteine-serine-rich domain (CSRD). Collectively, these recurrent missense mutations affect ∼0.8% of unrelated NF1 mutation-positive probands in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) cohort. Major superficial plexiform neurofibromas and symptomatic spinal neurofibromas were more prevalent in these individuals compared with classic NF1-affected cohorts (both p < 0.0001). Nearly half of the individuals had symptomatic or asymptomatic optic pathway gliomas and/or skeletal abnormalities. Additionally, variants in this region seem to confer a high predisposition to develop malignancies compared with the general NF1-affected population (p = 0.0061). Our results demonstrate that these NF1 missense mutations, although located outside the GAP-related domain, may be an important risk factor for a severe presentation. A genotype-phenotype correlation at the NF1 region 844–848 exists and will be valuable in the management and genetic counseling of a significant number of individuals

Correction: Expanding the clinical phenotype of individuals with a 3-bp in-frame deletion of the NF1 gene (c.2970_2972del): an update of genotype–phenotype correlation

n/

A Glycemia Risk Index (GRI) of Hypoglycemia and Hyperglycemia for Continuous Glucose Monitoring Validated by Clinician Ratings

BackgroundA composite metric for the quality of glycemia from continuous glucose monitor (CGM) tracings could be useful for assisting with basic clinical interpretation of CGM data.MethodsWe assembled a data set of 14-day CGM tracings from 225 insulin-treated adults with diabetes. Using a balanced incomplete block design, 330 clinicians who were highly experienced with CGM analysis and interpretation ranked the CGM tracings from best to worst quality of glycemia. We used principal component analysis and multiple regressions to develop a model to predict the clinician ranking based on seven standard metrics in an Ambulatory Glucose Profile: very low-glucose and low-glucose hypoglycemia; very high-glucose and high-glucose hyperglycemia; time in range; mean glucose; and coefficient of variation.ResultsThe analysis showed that clinician rankings depend on two components, one related to hypoglycemia that gives more weight to very low-glucose than to low-glucose and the other related to hyperglycemia that likewise gives greater weight to very high-glucose than to high-glucose. These two components should be calculated and displayed separately, but they can also be combined into a single Glycemia Risk Index (GRI) that corresponds closely to the clinician rankings of the overall quality of glycemia (r = 0.95). The GRI can be displayed graphically on a GRI Grid with the hypoglycemia component on the horizontal axis and the hyperglycemia component on the vertical axis. Diagonal lines divide the graph into five zones (quintiles) corresponding to the best (0th to 20th percentile) to worst (81st to 100th percentile) overall quality of glycemia. The GRI Grid enables users to track sequential changes within an individual over time and compare groups of individuals.ConclusionThe GRI is a single-number summary of the quality of glycemia. Its hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia components provide actionable scores and a graphical display (the GRI Grid) that can be used by clinicians and researchers to determine the glycemic effects of prescribed and investigational treatments