A Review of the Canadian Space Program

This paper reviews the history of Canadian activities in space from the early Alouette I satellite to Canada\u27s present involvement in the Space Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS) program. The SRMS program is being executed by Spar Aerospace Limited* through, an international agreement between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC). As the first flight SRMS reaches completion at Spar, the program is reviewed. The SRMS is described in terms of its subsystems, its of control and performance requirements and the current status of the hardware is examined. Delivery to NASA JSC of the first flight system is scheduled in 1980. In conclusion, the paper highlights the benefits which accrue from international cooperation at the industrial level in space programs and. makes a case for the continuance of such arrangements

Legislative Change and Strike Activity in Canada, 1926-1974

Le présent article tente d'expliquer les variations à long terme des grèves au Canada pendant la période 1926-1974. À cette fin, il examine les effets de diverses variables d'ordre économique et organisationnel sur les types de conflits du travail. L'article s'efforce de replacer la grève dans son contexte politique en observant comment les modifications apportées à la législation fédérale du travail ont influencé au cours de ces années les types de grèves survenus au Canada. Ce qui ressort de cette étude, c'est que d'une part, le type de grève varie en fonction de la situation économique et de la capacité des syndicats d'imposer leurs revendications et que, d'autre part, la législation du travail influence le rapport entre les grèves et les deux variables qui viennent d'être citées.Les effets de nombreux facteurs économiques ainsi que de l'activité syndicale ont été étudiés en fonction de trois mesures d'évaluation des grèves, soit la fréquence, l'amplitude et la durée de la grève. On l'a fait pour l'ensemble de la période. Par la suite, les séries chronologiques furent scindées en choisissant une mesure législative fédérale (le C.P. 1003) comme point de rupture. Cette analyse confirme l'importance d'une législation du travail favorable aux travailleurs en tant que variable dans le rapport entre la situation économique et l'action syndicale d'une part, et les grèves, d'autre part. L'examen des données révèle très clairement que les modifications apportées à la législation en 1944 ont eu un impact significatif sur les causes déterminantes des grèves. Durant la période antérieure à 1944, l'état de l'organisation syndicale était la cause principale des variations dans les grèves. Après 1944, la négociation collective s'est institutionnalisée et la situation économique devint la cause principale de la décision de déclencher et de poursuivre les grèves.The authors examine long term variations in the level of strike activity in Canada between 1926 and 1974 by examining the effects of several economic and organizational variables on the pattern of industrial conflict

What’s trending in Breathlessness research? Proceedings from the 8th Annual Meeting of the Breathlessness Research Interest Group

Breathlessness remains a challenging symptom, common to a multitude of malignant and non-malignant diseases, for which there are limited effective therapies once disease control is optimised. The American Thoracic Society (ATS) statement on dyspnoea reports that: i)Progress in dyspnoea management has not matched progress in elucidating underlying mechanisms; ii)There is a critical need for interdisciplinary translational research to connect dyspnoea mechanisms with treatments; iii)There is a need to validate dyspnoea measures as patient-reported outcomes for clinical trials. Research into the many dimensions of breathlessness and its significance to patients and their carers has increased in recent years. This meeting is convened yearly to bring together researchers across various disciplines including respiratory medicine, anaesthetics, medical humanities, engineering and palliative care, to further understanding of the symptom, discuss new techniques and advances in research, and pave the way forward for future studies and interventions. The presentations generated much vibrant discussion amongst the multidisciplinary attendees and highlighted areas where care for breathless patients could be improved. This is a positive time for breathlessness research, with several ATS research priorities being addressed and it is clear that further studies and ensuing interventions are on the horizon.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Maney at http://www.maneyonline.com/toc/ppc/current

Permeating the social justice ideals of equality and equity within the context of Early Years: challenges for leadership in multi-cultural and mono-cultural primary schools

The ideology and commitment of social justice principles is central to Early Years practice, however, the term social justice in education is complex and remains contested. This paper explores the ideology of social justice through links between equality and equity and how it is embedded within Early Years, and what remain the potential challenges for leadership. Interviews in English multi-cultural and mono-cultural primary schools were conducted. Findings showed that the ideology of social justice, equality and equity was interpreted differently. Multi-cultural schools appear to use a greater variety of activities to embed social justice principles that involved their diverse communities more to enrich the curriculum. In mono-cultural schools leadership had to be more creative in promoting equality and equity given the smaller proportion of their diverse pupil and staff population. Tentative conclusions suggest that the vision for permeating equality and equity in Early Years, at best, is at early stages

Young children's research: children aged 4-8 years finding solutions at home and at school

Children's research capacities have become increasingly recognised by adults, yet children remain excluded from the academy, with reports of their research participation generally located in adults' agenda. Such practice restricts children's freedom to make choices in matters affecting them, underestimates children’s capabilities and denies children particular rights. The present paper reports on one aspect of a small-scale critical ethnographic study adopting a constructivist grounded approach to conceptualise ways in which children's naturalistic behaviours may be perceived as research. The study builds on multi-disciplinary theoretical perspectives, embracing 'new' sociology, psychology, economics, philosophy and early childhood education and care (ECEC). Research questions include: 'What is the nature of ECEC research?' and 'Do children’s enquiries count as research?' Initially, data were collected from the academy: professional researchers (n=14) confirmed 'finding solutions' as a research behaviour and indicated children aged 4-8 years, their practitioners and primary carers as 'theoretical sampling'. Consequently, multi-modal case studies were constructed with children (n=138) and their practitioners (n=17) in three ‘good’ schools, with selected children and their primary carers also participating at home. This paper reports on data emerging from children aged 4-8 years at school (n=17) and at home (n=5). Outcomes indicate that participating children found diverse solutions to diverse problems, some of which they set themselves. Some solutions engaged children in high order thinking, whilst others did not; selecting resources and trialing activities engaged children in 'finding solutions'. Conversely, when children's time, provocations and activities were directed by adults, the quality of their solutions was limited, they focused on pleasing adults and their motivation to propose solutions decreased. In this study, professional researchers recognised 'finding solutions' as research behaviour and children aged 4-8 years naturalistically presented with capacities for finding solutions; however, the children's encounters with adults affected the solutions they found

Conservation laws and symmetries of quasilinear radial wave equations in multi-dimensions

Symmetries and conservation laws are studied for two classes of physically and analytically interesting radial wave equations with power nonlinearities in multi-dimensions. The results consist of two main classifications: all symmetries of point type and all conservation laws of a general energy-momentum type are explicitly determined, including those such as dilations, inversions, similarity energies and conformal energies that exist only for special powers or dimensions. In particular, all variational cases (when a Lagrangian formulation exists) and non-variational cases (when no Lagrangian exists) for these wave equations are considered. As main results, the classification yields generalized energies and radial momenta in certain non-variational cases, which are shown to arise from a new type of Morawetz dilation identity that produces conservation laws for each of the two wave equations in a different way than Noether's theorem.Comment: Typos corrected in published version, 38 pages. Lagrangian functionals now include missing integration over the time variabl

Learning is Like a Lava Lamp: The Student Journey to Critical Thinking

This paper explores the ways in which a university Foundation Degree programme supports undergraduate early years students to develop critical thinking, mindfulness and self-actualisation through their lived personal and professional experiences. It considers the impact of this on graduates employed within the Early Years sector. Findings inform future design of a University Foundation Degree programme situated within Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). As undergraduates, students engage in higher-level learning aligned to their practice within the workplace. An interpretive Participatory Qualitative Research methodology is used to gather the views of 6 alumni who completed their studies in 2014. They participated in the research freely within ethical parameters approved by a university ethics committee. Findings revealed that the development of critical thinking is empowered by having a personal or professional impetus, which in the case of Early Years is the child as being at the heart of values based practice. This, with the inclusion of mindfulness, drives students to a sustainable deeper layer of thinking to achieve self-actualisation. Through the acquisition of critical thinking students have been subsequently able to take up positions of authority within the early years workforce

Manipulation of Biofilm Microbial Ecology

The biofilm mode of growth provides such significant advantages to the members of the consortium that most organisms in important habitats are found in biofilms. The study of factors that allow manipulation of biofilm microbes in the biofilm growth state requires that reproducible biofilms be generated. The most effective monitoring of biofilm formation, succession and desaturation is with on-line monitoring of microbial biofilms with flowcell for direct observation. The biofilm growth state incorporates a second important factor, the heterogeneity in distribution in time and space of the component members of the biofilm consortium. This heterogeneity is reflected not only in the cellular distribution but in the metabolic activity within a population of cells. Activity and cellular distribution can be mapped in four dimensions with confocal microscopy, and function can be ascertained by genetically manipulated reporter functions for specific genes or by vital stains. The methodology for understanding the microbial ecology of biofilms is now much more readily available and the capacity to manipulate biofilms is becoming an important feature of biotechnology

Student feedback on the use of paintings in Sparshanam, the Medical Humanities module at KIST Medical College, Nepal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Paintings have been used in Medical Humanities modules in Nepal at Manipal College of Medical Sciences and KIST Medical College. Detailed participant feedback about the paintings used, the activities carried out, problems with using paintings and the role of paintings in future modules has not been previously done. Hence the present study was carried out.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The present module for first year medical students was conducted from February to August 2010 at KIST Medical College, Nepal. Paintings used were by Western artists and obtained from the Literature, Arts and Medicine database. The activities undertaken by the students include answering the questions 'What do you see' and 'What do you feel' about the painting, creating a story of 100 words about the scene depicted, and interpreting the painting using role plays and poems/songs. Feedback was not obtained about the last two activities. In August 2010 we obtained detailed feedback about the paintings used.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Seventy-eight of the 100 students (78%) participated. Thirty-four students (43.6%) were male. The most common overall comments about the use of paintings were "they helped me feel what I saw" (12 respondents), "enjoyed the sessions" (12 respondents), "some paintings were hard to interpret" (10 respondents) and "were in tune with module objectives" (10 respondents). Forty-eight (61.5%) felt the use of western paintings was appropriate. Suggestions to make annotations about paintings more useful were to make them shorter and more precise, simplify the language and properly introduce the artist. Forty-one students (52.6%) had difficulty with the exercise 'what do you feel'. Seventy-four students (94.9%) wanted paintings from Nepal to be included.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Participant response was positive and they were satisfied with use of paintings in the module. Use of more paintings from Nepal and South Asia can be considered. Further studies may be required to understand whether use of paintings succeeded in fulfilling module objectives.</p

Determination of the b quark mass at the M_Z scale with the DELPHI detector at LEP

An experimental study of the normalized three-jet rate of b quark events with respect to light quarks events (light= \ell \equiv u,d,s) has been performed using the CAMBRIDGE and DURHAM jet algorithms. The data used were collected by the DELPHI experiment at LEP on the Z peak from 1994 to 2000. The results are found to agree with theoretical predictions treating mass corrections at next-to-leading order. Measurements of the b quark mass have also been performed for both the b pole mass: M_b and the b running mass: m_b(M_Z). Data are found to be better described when using the running mass. The measurement yields: m_b(M_Z) = 2.85 +/- 0.18 (stat) +/- 0.13 (exp) +/- 0.19 (had) +/- 0.12 (theo) GeV/c^2 for the CAMBRIDGE algorithm. This result is the most precise measurement of the b mass derived from a high energy process. When compared to other b mass determinations by experiments at lower energy scales, this value agrees with the prediction of Quantum Chromodynamics for the energy evolution of the running mass. The mass measurement is equivalent to a test of the flavour independence of the strong coupling constant with an accuracy of 7 permil.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.