“The common sympathies of our nature”: Moral Sentiments, Emotional Economies, and Imprisonment for Debt in Upper Canada

The campaign against imprisonment for debt in Upper Canada, at its peak in the 1820s and 1830s, gave new prominence to public expressions of emotion as part of a process of moral reflection. The feelings of ordinary colonists became more politically salient, as did friendship as a metaphor for the bonds created by such human sensibility. Legal reformers condemned imprisonment for debt for distorting moral reasoning and thus disrupting reciprocal social relations. This article traces how sensibility was mobilized by legal reformers and their critics in public debate, acts of charity, and narratives of suicide and death and by debtors in their own petitions. Sensibility delegitimized the principle of the law and fuelled a number of reforms, but its malleability ensured that its prescriptions were multiple, that particular emotional performances aroused suspicion of being perverse, and that existing hierarchies might be affirmed as well as challenged. La campagne contre l’emprisonnement pour dettes au Haut-Canada, qui a atteint son paroxysme dans les années 1820 et 1830, a donné une importance nouvelle aux expressions publiques de l’émotion dans le cadre d’un processus de réflexion morale. Les sentiments des colons ordinaires ont gagné en pertinence du point de vue politique, comme l’amitié en tant que métaphore des liens créés par une sensibilité humaine de ce genre. Les réformateurs du droit ont condamné l’emprisonnement pour dettes parce qu’il altérait le raisonnement moral et perturbait, par conséquent, les relations sociales réciproques. L’auteur montre ici comment les réformateurs du droit et leurs critiques ont fait appel à la sensibilité dans le débat public, les gestes de charité et les récits du suicide et de la mort, tout comme les débiteurs l’ont fait dans leurs propres pétitions. La sensibilité a délégitimé le principe de la loi et alimenté nombre de réformes. Sa malléabilité a cependant fait que ses prescriptions étaient multiples, que des manifestations particulières d’émotion alimentaient les suspicions de perversité, et que les hiérarchies existantes étaient susceptibles d’être affirmées aussi bien que contestées

British Travellers, Nova Scotia’s Black Communities and the Problem of Freedom to 1860

British travellers commented frequently on those of African descent they encountered in colonial Nova Scotia, especially their material conditions and prospects. Those who published accounts at the peak of the campaign to abolish slavery in the British Empire intervened directly in debates about whether former slaves would prosper under conditions of colonial freedom. They cast themselves as objective imperial observers and Nova Scotia’s black communities as experiments in free labour. Attending to how most crafted and reworked their observations to argue against emancipation in the West Indies situates Nova Scotia and travel texts in intellectual histories of the production of colonial knowledge, debates about slavery, and the nature of nineteenth-century liberalism.Les voyageurs britanniques de l’époque coloniale discutaient souvent des personnes d’ascendance africaine qu’ils rencontraient en Nouvelle-Écosse, en particulier de leurs conditions de vie matérielles et de leurs perspectives d’avenir. Ceux dont les récits furent publiés à l’apogée de la campagne d’abolition de l’esclavage dans l’Empire britannique sont intervenus directement dans le débat au sujet des possibilités de réussite des anciens esclaves devenus libres. Ces auteurs, qui se posaient en observateurs objectifs, présentaient les collectivités noires de Nouvelle-Écosse comme des expériences en matière de liberté de la main-d’oeuvre. L’étude de la façon dont la plupart de ces auteurs choisirent leurs mots et remanièrent leurs observations pour plaider contre l’émancipation des esclaves des Antilles aide à situer la Nouvelle-Écosse et les récits de voyage dans les historiographies intellectuelles de la production des savoirs coloniaux, des débats sur l’esclavage et de la nature du libéralisme au XIXe siècle

Method and theory of V. Gordon Childe

This thesis examines the work of V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957). one of the most outstanding figures in the development of archaeology. Childe was unique among his contemporaries not only for his exceptional achievement in synthesising European and Oriental prehistory on a hitherto unprecedented scale, but also for the depth of his methodo¬ logical, theoretical and ultimately philosophical enquiry into archaeological procedure. Although Childe himself especially valued his contribution to archaeology as the originator of new interpretative concepts and methods of explanation, his explicitly theoretical work is not widely known today and indeed was largely ignored by his contem¬ poraries. Here an attempt is made to redress the balance, not by depreciating Childe's role as a synthesiser, nor by overstating his explicit concern with theory, but rather by viewing both these aspects of his work as integral parts of an overall enquiry into prehistory. The thesis thus begins with an outline of the develop¬ ment of Childe's synthesis of European and Oriental prehistory in relationship to the development of his theoretical frame¬ work. This is followed by a more detailed analysis of the theoretical content of the synthesis itself and by a closer examination of his work on archaeological classification, historical theory and philosophy of knowledge. In tracing Childe's intellectual genesis and development from his entry iiinto archaeology in the early twenties to his tragic death in 1957, one follows a remarkable Journey through philolo¬ gical theory, Oriental diffusionism, functionalism, Darwinism and Marxism. The picture which emerges is one of an archaeologist grappling with complex and often contra¬ dictory theoretical systems, in an attempt not only to perceive the patterns in prehistory, but to understand the historical process itself

From Blame to Dialogue: In Quest of Intergenerational Respect on Climate Sustainability

Conversations about rapid climate disruption can become side-tracked by blame-seeking: who or what nations or cultures or age brackets are most responsible for global warming? This paper seeks to move beyond blame to constructive dialogue by modeling mutual respect and understanding on the part of two people separated in age by forty years: a recently graduated CSU Chico senior and an actively retired academic. They are second cousins, part of an extended family that for decades has mutually influenced and educated each other on sustainability and other environmental topics

Application of Multi-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) in Crop Classification

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Creating space for Indigenous healing practices in patient care plans

Background: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action ask that those who can effect change within the Canadian healthcare system recognize the value of Indigenous healing practices and support them in the treatment of Indigenous patients. Methods: We distributed a survey to the Canadian Rheumatology Association membership to assess awareness of Indigenous healing practices, and attitudes informing their acceptance in patient care plans. Results: We received responses from 77/514 members (15%), with most (73%) being unclear or unaware of what Indigenous healing practices were. Nearly all (93%) expressed interest in the concept of creating space for Indigenous healing practices in rheumatology care plans. The majority of support was for the use in preventive or symptom management strategies, and less as adjuncts to disease activity control. Themes identified through qualitative analysis of free-text responses included a desire for patient-centered care and support for reconciliation in medicine, but with a colonial construct of medicine, demonstration of an evidence bias, and hierarchy of medicines. Conclusions: Overall, respondents were open to the idea of inclusion of Indigenous healing practices in patient’s car plans, emphasizing importance for patient empowerment and patient-centered care. However, they cited concerns that provide the indication for further learning and reconciliation in medicine

Crop biophysical parameter retrieval from Sentinel-1 SAR data with a multi-target inversion of Water Cloud Model

Estimation of bio-and geophysical parameters from Earth observation (EO) data is essential for developing applications on crop growth monitoring. High spatio-temporal resolution and wide spatial coverage provided by EO satellite data are key inputs for operational crop monitoring. In Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) applications, a semi-empirical model (viz., Water Cloud Model (WCM)) is often used to estimate vegetation descriptors individually. However, a simultaneous estimation of these vegetation descriptors would be logical given their inherent correlation, which is seldom preserved in the estimation of individual descriptors by separate inversion models. This functional relationship between biophysical parameters is essential for crop yield models, given that their variations often follow different distribution throughout crop development stages. However, estimating individual parameters with independent inversion models presume a simple relationship (potentially linear) between the biophysical parameters. Alternatively, a multi-target inversion approach would be more effective for this aspect of model inversion compared to an individual estimation approach. In the present research, the multi-output support vector regression (MSVR) technique is used for inversion of the WCM from C-band dual-pol Sentinel-1 SAR data. Plant Area Index (PAI, m2 m−2) and wet biomass (W, kg m−2) are used as the vegetation descriptors in the WCM. The performance of the inversion approach is evaluated with in-situ measurements collected over the test site in Manitoba (Canada), which is a super-site in the Joint Experiment for Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM) SAR inter-comparison experiment network. The validation results indicate a good correlation with acceptable error estimates (normalized root mean square error–nRMSE and mean absolute error–MAE) for both PAI and wet biomass for the MSVR approach and a better estimation with MSVR than single-target models (support vector regression–SVR). Furthermore, the correlation between PAI and wet biomass is assessed using the MSVR and SVR model. Contrary to the single output SVR, the correlation between biophysical parameters is adequately taken into account in MSVR based simultaneous inversion technique. Finally, the spatio-temporal maps for PAI and W at different growth stages indicate their variability with crop development over the test site.This research was supported in part by Shastri Indo-Candian Institute, New Delhi, India and the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, in part by the State Agency of Research (AEI), in part by the European Funds for Regional Development under project TEC2017-85244-C2-1-P