An Analysis of Transport Services and Facilities in Northern Ontario Centres: A Qualitative Approach

Transportation has been considered in the discipline of geography largely within the context of distance and cost constraints, particularly with reference to industrial location decision-making processes. These costs are easily-quantifiable and measurable, and transportation geographers have tended to depend upon distance and tariff costs as the major transportation inputs in locational decision-making processes. This dependency upon cost considerations is no longer evident in the real world. The priorities of the consignors (shippers) and consignees (customers) have shifted lately, and these distance and cost considerations are now examined in conjunction with such qualitative priorities as frequency of the consistency and reliability of service, with the result that it is no longer sufficient to deal only with distance and tariff costs when assessing transportation variations over space. Very little work has been done on transportation services, particularly with reference to their impact upon industrial location problems. This research is an attempt at providing some evaluation of the qualitative aspects of transportation. It utilizes the indexing method in order to relate the various qualities of transportation services at various centres. The findings from the evaluation can be applied to regional development planning, and the evaluation technique can be used by the individual entrepreneur in an effort to determine the most advantaged centres in terms of the quality of transportation services available

MARILYN MONROE’S STAR CANON: POSTWAR AMERICAN CULTURE AND THE SEMIOTICS OF STARDOM

Although Marilyn Monroe was one of the most famous American film stars, and a monumental cultural figure, her film work has been studied far less than her biography. Applying C.S. Peirce’s semiotic categories of icon, index, and symbol, this research explains how Monroe acquired meaning as an actress: Monroe was a powerful, but simplified, public image (an icon); an indicator of a particular historical and social context (an index); and an embodiment of significant cultural debates (a symbol). Analyzing Monroe as an icon reveals how her personal life, which contradicted her official publicity story, generated public sympathy and led to a perceived intimacy between the star and her fans. Monroe’s persona developed through her roles in films about marriage. We’re Not Married (1952) and Niagara (1953) expose the pitfalls of marriage. In response to fan criticism of Monroe’s aggressive persona in these films, however, Darryl F. Zanuck, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), consciously distanced Monroe both from her aggressive persona and her implicit criticism of marriage. Monroe’s films, in particular, The Seven Year Itch (1955), Bus Stop (1956), and Some Like it Hot (1959), also revealed the tensions inherent in postwar understandings of female sexuality. Monroe’s role in her final completed film, The Misfits (1960), both acknowledges and resists her status as a symbol. This film unites Monroe’s screen persona and off-screen life in resistance to conventional values: her character embraces divorce, lives with a man who is not her husband, and openly criticizes men who betray trust. This film most extensively interweaves Monroe as an icon, an index, and a symbol. In so doing, it reveals how Monroe embodied the contradictions inherent in both postwar culture and Hollywood stardom

Volatile organic compound exposure and cardiometabolic syndrome risk in a nationally representative cohort.

BACKGROUND: The relative importance of environmental exposures such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is one of the paramount public health priorities of our time, yet is presently unstudied. VOCs are ubiquitous in the environment and have been associated with numerous adverse health effects, including a number of cardiovascular and metabolic effects that are components of Cardiometabolic Syndrome (CMS). OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationship between CMS and individual-level exposures to VOCs, measured as urinary metabolites of VOCs (UM-VOCs), in a nationally representative sample. METHODS: Associations between urinary biomarkers of exposure to 19 parent VOCs and CMS were assessed using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). To isolate effects from environmental VOC exposures, analyses were stratified by tobacco-smoke exposure status. CMS was treated dichotomously as well as ordinally and associations with VOCs were considered from a single pollutant, as well as multi-pollutant perspectives. Potential important groupings and interactions among VOCs, and their associations with CMS were evaluated using numerous traditional regression modeling and exploratory modeling methods including: backwards-selection model-building, factor analysis, LASSO penalized regression, and a cumulative VOC exposure score. RESULTS: Concentrations of eight UM-VOCs were significantly different between individuals with and without CMS. Among the non-smoke exposed participants, 6 UM-VOCs were significantly associated with increased odds of CMS. These associations were observed with metabolites from acrolein, 1,3-butadiene, crotonaldehyde, cyanide, and ethylbenzene/styrene. Furthermore, dose-response type relationships were observed with metabolites of acrolein, 1,3-butadiene, and crotonaldehyde. Metabolites from acrolein and ethylbenzene/styrene were associated with disease progression in ordinal logistic regression models and a cumulative VOC exposure score was significantly associated with the progression of disease towards clinically diagnosable CMS (OR: 1.015, 95% CI: 1.007, 1.024). DISCUSSION: This novel quantitative and nationally representative study investigated associations between individual-level exposures to VOCs and CMS. The results of this study point toward a potential causal role for certain VOCs in the development of CMS, a condition which ultimately greatly increases one’s risk of the deadliest non-communicable disease in the world, cardiovascular disease. These findings are important for the development of public health interventions and policies surrounding modifiable environmental pollution exposures

Performance of a reciprocating packed extraction column

The performance of a mechanically-aided liquid extraction column was investigated utilizing the methyl isobutyl ketone-acetic acid-water ternary extraction system. Mechanical power was added to the extraction system by reciprocating a wire-mesh packing of high void volume at various frequencies and displacements. The effects of total throughput on performance were studied in increments of 5,000 pounds per hour per square foot up to the onset of flooding, and the column performance was evaluated as a function of power addition to the extraction system. In comparing the various types of mechanically-aided extraction columns, it was determined that the throughputs achieved with the wire-mesh packed column utilized in this work were considerably higher than any other reported throughputs for mechanically-aided extraction columns. Competitive performance was also achieved with the reciprocating packed extraction column at throughputs which were higher than those achieved with various other designs of mechanically-aided extraction columns --Abstract, page ii

Modernizing Information Programs: Patterns for Action

Let this essay begin with a bold premise: The time has come for agricultural editors to make a drastic change in the way they handle their information programs

The Experiment Station Periodical: A Neglected Stepchild

Every spring the local Rotary club of a small town in western Canada puts up a sign at the edge of town: Take heed which rut you choose; you will be in it for the next 50 miles. Could it be that the experiment station periodicals of U.S. land-grant colleges are fossilized in a rut