The View from Jacob Street: Reframing Urban Renewal in Postwar Halifax

By focusing on the period immediately following planner Gordon Stephenson’s redevelopment study of Halifax in 1957 and before the start of the Africville relocation in 1964, we gain a different appreciation of the scale of displacement, the interplay of race and class in shaping people’s vulnerability to urban renewal, and the power of the municipal state. Understanding these early redevelopment efforts also provides us with a different perspective on Africville. The city’s actions there were shaped by shifting attitudes towards racism and an attempt, albeit inadequate, to rectify it by focusing on one of its most visible manifestations – segregation.En nous concentrant sur la période qui a suivi immédiatement l’étude de l’urbaniste Gordon Stephenson sur le réaménagement d’Halifax en 1957 et précédé le début de la relocalisation d’Africville en 1964, nous acquérons une compréhension différente de l’ampleur du transfert de population, de la façon dont l’effet combiné de la race et de la classe sociale a rendu des gens vulnérables au réaménagement urbain, et du pouvoir de l’administration municipale. La compréhension de ces premières initiatives de réaménagement nous amène également à porter un regard différent sur Africville. Les mesures prises par la Ville à cet endroit ont été façonnées par un changement d’attitudes envers le racisme et une tentative, certes inadéquate, de remédier à celui-ci en mettant l’accent sur l’une de ses manifestations les plus visibles : la ségrégation

Africville and the Dynamics of State Power in Postwar Canada

This article examines the program of urban renewal undertaken by the City of Halifax in the mid-1960s that resulted in the destruction of the African Canadian neighbourhood of Africville. Focusing on how the relocation was carried out gives us a very different view of the workings of the postwar state – specifically, of the contingencies of power and the complexities of its exercise. Africville is important not just as an example of racism, but for what it reveals about the dynamics of state power and the meanings of the good life embedded in the welfare state. Résumé Cet article examine le programme de rénovation urbaine mis en œuvre par la Ville de Halifax au milieu des années 1960, qui a conduit à la destruction du quartier d’Africville, habité par des Afro Canadiens. En mettant l’accent sur la façon dont ses habitants ont été relocalisés, cet article nous donne un aperçu très différent du fonctionnement de l’État dans l’après-guerre, plus précisément des contingences du pouvoir et de la complexité de son exercice. Le cas d’Africville est important non seulement comme exemple de racisme, mais aussi pour ce qu’il révèle au sujet de la dynamique du pouvoir de l’État et de ce que signifie la qualité de vie coulée dans le moule de l’État providence

DiSSCo Prepare WP7 –D7.3 Assessment tools and direction map to the implementation of common DiSSCo policies

The Distributed System for Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) Research Infrastructure will operate a number of e-services, all of which will have policy requirements for participating institutions. These policies include those related to digital and physical access to specimens, digital image and specimen metadata, and FAIR / Open Data. Previous projects have shown that the policy landscape is complex, and Task 7.3 has developed a policy self-assessment tool that will allow DiSSCo to assess policy alignment across the consortium. This deliverable describes the development of the policy self-assessment tool and provides a walkthrough of the key features. The same technical framework was used to create a digital maturity tool, which was initially proposed by Task 3.1, and this is also described within this document. A set of recommendations are included that outline the future direction for the development of the policy tool.The Distributed System for Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) Research Infrastructure will operate a number´of e-services, all of which will have policy requirements for participating institutions. These policies include those related to digital and physical access to specimens, digital image and specimen metadata, and FAIR / Open Data. Previous projects have shown that the policy landscape is complex, and Task 7.3 has developed a policy self-assessment tool that will allow DiSSCo to assess policy alignment across the consortium. This deliverable describes the development of the policy self-assessment tool and provides a walkthrough of the key features. The same technical framework was used to create a digital maturity tool, which was initially proposed by Task 3.1, and this is also described within this document. A set of recommendations are included that outline the future direction for the development of the policy tool

"The extreme penalty of the law": mercy and the death penalty as aspects of state power in colonial Nyasaland, c. 1903-47

Open access article.Capital punishment was the pinnacle of the colonial judicial system and its use of state violence, but has previously been neglected as a topic of historical research in Africa. This article is based on the case files and legal records of over 800 capital trials – predominantly for murder – dating between 1900 and 1947. It outlines the functioning of the legal system in Nyasaland and the tensions between “violence” and “humanitarianism” in the use and reform of the death penalty. Capital punishment was a political penalty as much as a judicial punishment, with both didactic and deterrent functions: it operated through mercy and the sparing of condemned lives as well as through executions. Mercy in Nyasaland was consistent with colonial political objectives and cultural values: it was decided not only on the facts of cases, but according to British conceptions of “justice”, “order”, “criminality”, and “African” behaviour. This article analyses the use of mercy in Nyasaland to provide a lens on the nature of colonial governance, and the tensions between African and colonial understandings of violence.Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) and the Beit Fund, University of Oxfor

Biocompatibility and Biodegradation Studies of Subconjunctival Implants in Rabbit Eyes

Sustained ocular drug delivery is difficult to achieve. Most drugs have poor penetration due to the multiple physiological barriers of the eye and are rapidly cleared if applied topically. Biodegradable subconjunctival implants with controlled drug release may circumvent these two problems. In our study, two microfilms (poly [d,l-lactide-co-glycolide] PLGA and poly[d,l-lactide-co-caprolactone] PLC were developed and evaluated for their degradation behavior in vitro and in vivo. We also evaluated the biocompatibility of both microfilms. Eighteen eyes (9 rabbits) were surgically implanted with one type of microfilm in each eye. Serial anterior-segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) scans together with serial slit-lamp microscopy allowed us to measure thickness and cross-sectional area of the microfilms. In vitro studies revealed bulk degradation kinetics for both microfilms, while in vivo studies demonstrated surface erosion kinetics. Serial slit-lamp microscopy revealed no significant inflammation or vascularization in both types of implants (mean increase in vascularity grade PLGA50/50 12±0.5% vs. PLC70/30 15±0.6%; P = 0.91) over a period of 6 months. Histology, immunohistochemistry and immuno-fluorescence also revealed no significant inflammatory reaction from either of the microfilms, which confirmed that both microfilms are biocompatible. The duration of the drug delivery can be tailored by selecting the materials, which have different degradation kinetics, to suit the desired clinical therapeutic application

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts