Bureaucratizing the Atlantic Revolution: The "Saskatchewan Mafia" in the New Brunswick Civil Service, 1960-1970

Louis J. Robichaud recognized at the time of his election as premier in 1960 that bureaucratic modernization was urgently needed to translate the political gains of the "Atlantic Revolution" into workable social and economic programs in New Brunswick. To provide leadership in civil service reform, Robichaud recruited seven ex-Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation bureaucrats who became known as the "Saskatchewan Mafia." This article uses their experiences to explore the bureaucratization of the Atlantic Revolution, and argues that this group played a crucial role in the transformation of New Brunswick’s political bureaucracy and thus in the modernization of the province as a whole. Résumé Lors de son élection comme premier ministre en 1960, Louis J. Robichaud reconnaissait qu’il était urgent de moderniser l’appareil bureaucratique afin que les gains politiques de la « Révolution atlantique » se traduisent par des programmes sociaux et économiques réalisables au Nouveau-Brunswick. Pour exercer le leadership dans la réforme de la fonction publique, Robichaud recruta sept anciens fonctionnaires sous le gouvernement de la Co-operative Commonwealth Federation de la Saskatchewan, que l’on appela la « Saskatchewan Mafia ». À partir de leurs expériences, cet article explore la bureaucratisation de la Révolution atlantique et fait valoir que ce groupe a joué un rôle crucial dans la transformation de la bureaucratie politique du Nouveau-Brunswick et, par conséquent, dans la modernisation de l’ensemble de la province

Reframing the Issue: Child Care Advocacy in Alberta

This article focuses on the organization, strategies, and motivations of the contemporary child care movement in Alberta. The concept of framing is used to explore the ways in which child care advocates negotiate the gap between their desires for policy change and their knowledge of what advances are feasible given the political realities of the province. In particular, the article emphasizes advocates’ use of gender-neutral, child-centred frames that focus on the developmental and economic benefits of child care, rather than feminist-informed frames that emphasize the need for public, universal child care. This has implications for the scope of policy reforms on the political agenda and for women’s equality in Alberta.Cet article s’intéresse à l’organisation, aux stratégies et aux mobiles du mouvement contemporain de la garde des enfants en Alberta. On utilise le concept d’élaboration afin d’explorer les méthodes employées par les militants de la garde d’enfants, pour négocier l’écart entre leur désir de changement de politique et leur connaissance sur les avancées qui sont faisables, compte tenu des réalités de la province. Cet article met particulièrement l’emphase sur l’utilisation des termes « élaborations de genres neutres» et « élaborations centrées sur les enfants » par les militants, afin de porter une attention particulière sur les avantages développementaux et économiques de la garde d’enfants, plutôt que sur des élaborations d’information féministes, qui mettent l’emphase sur une garde d’enfant universelle et publique. Cela a un impact sur la place des réformes politiques et sur l’égalité

Hybrid modeling and control of mechatronic systems using a piecewise affine dynamics approach

This thesis investigates the topic of modeling and control of PWA systems based on two experimental cases of an electrical and hydraulic nature with varying complexity that were also built, instrumented and evaluated. A full-order model has been created for both systems, including all dominant system dynamics and non-linearities. The unknown parameters and characteristics have been identi ed via an extensive parameter identi cation. In the following, the non-linear characteristics are linearized at several points, resulting in PWA models for each respective setup. Regarding the closed loop control of the generated models and corresponding experimental setups, a linear control structure comprised of integral error, feed-forward and state-feedback control has been used. Additionally, the hydraulic setup has been controlled in an autonomous hybrid position/force control mode, resulting in a switched system with each mode's dynamics being de ned by the previously derived PWA-based model in combination with the control structure and respective mode-dependent controller gains. The autonomous switch between control modes has been de ned by a switching event capable of consistently switching between modes in a deterministic manner despite the noise-a icted measurements. Several methods were used to obtain suitable controller gains, including optimization routines and pole placement. Validation of the system's fast and accurate response was obtained through simulations and experimental evaluation. The controlled system's local stability was proven for regions in state-space associated with operational points by using pole-zero analysis. The stability of the hybrid control approach was proven by using multiple Lyapunov functions for the investigated test scenarios.publishedVersio

“S.E.E.D.S.” Un programma di insegnamento, supervisione e valutazione della consultazione medica nelle cure primarie

Background. The consultation is the most common diagnostic and therapeutic procedure, and it is the usual way in which primary care is delivered. Therefore it should be evaluated and taught as any medical procedure. In Italy little attention is paid to the management of the consultation, and as abroad clinicians and scholars usually consider clinical reasoning and communication in the consultation as two realms quite far away from one another. In this way the vision of the consultation as a complex encounter is lost. It is, therefore, necessary to teach clinical and communication competences together as one entity.Experience. An operational model of the consultation and the process of implementation of a teaching and evaluation program are described.Conclusion. The model is easy to teach and allows the evaluation of the consultation in a simple and direct way, enhancing reflection on the encounter and connecting clinical reasoning with communication skills

Briefing e debriefing nell’ambito della formazione specifica in Medicina Generale: descrizione di un’esperienza

The most qualifying aspect of the vocational training course in general practice is the training at the practice of primary care team. During this training, a debriefing was structured over eight sessions and proposed in the School of General Practice of Trento (Italy). It was evaluated by participants, the facilitator and a panel of experts, through the analysis of transcripts of the registered sessions and of the final session of assessment.The experience was positive because participants were aware of the importance of integrated knowledge, successfully reflected on their own learning process and were able to work in a group.Therefore, besides the vocational training course in general practice planning a structured and guided reflection is an opportunity to build a community practice, and make to emerge the “tacit knowledge”, in order to enhance the personalization of care. This is possible if facilitators have not only clinical competences, but also relational and managerial ones, and if they are skilled to elicit reflections about experiences without any judgement and in a friendly manner

Newly Explored Faecalibacterium Diversity Is Connected to Age, Lifestyle, Geography, and Disease

Faecalibacterium is prevalent in the human gut and a promising microbe for the development of next-generation probiotics (NGPs) or biotherapeutics. Analyzing reference Faecalibacterium genomes and almost 3,000 Faecalibacterium-like metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) reconstructed from 7,907 human and 203 non-human primate gut metagenomes, we identified the presence of 22 different Faecalibacterium-like species-level genome bins (SGBs), some further divided in different strains according to the subject geographical origin. Twelve SGBs are globally spread in the human gut and show different genomic potential in the utilization of complex polysaccharides, suggesting that higher SGB diversity may be related with increased utilization of plant-based foods. Moreover, up to 11 different species may co-occur in the same subject, with lower diversity in Western populations, as well as intestinal inflammatory states and obesity. The newly explored Faecalibacterium diversity will be able to support the choice of strains suitable as NGPs, guided by the consideration of the differences existing in their functional potential

Comparing Child Care Policy in the Canadian Provinces

The ten Canadian provinces offer a rich site for comparative analysis of child care policy. To utilize this, we construct a framework that uses quantitative measures to assess the variation in child care arrangements across the ten provinces. Our framework suggests that provincial child care variation is multi-dimensional and often involves trade-offs or compromises. This finding challenges some of the assumptions of regime theory, which suggests that social policy arrangements are logical and cohesive. We argue that while regime theory is useful for understanding broad differences in social policy arrangements, including differences between Canada and other industrialized democracies, empirical comparative analysis of the kind we have undertaken is important for uncovering the more complex and nuanced variation apparent in real-world policy arrangements at the provincial level

Advances in Hyperspectral Image Classification Methods for Vegetation and Agricultural Cropland Studies

Hyperspectral data are becoming more widely available via sensors on airborne and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms, as well as proximal platforms. While space-based hyperspectral data continue to be limited in availability, multiple spaceborne Earth-observing missions on traditional platforms are scheduled for launch, and companies are experimenting with small satellites for constellations to observe the Earth, as well as for planetary missions. Land cover mapping via classification is one of the most important applications of hyperspectral remote sensing and will increase in significance as time series of imagery are more readily available. However, while the narrow bands of hyperspectral data provide new opportunities for chemistry-based modeling and mapping, challenges remain. Hyperspectral data are high dimensional, and many bands are highly correlated or irrelevant for a given classification problem. For supervised classification methods, the quantity of training data is typically limited relative to the dimension of the input space. The resulting Hughes phenomenon, often referred to as the curse of dimensionality, increases potential for unstable parameter estimates, overfitting, and poor generalization of classifiers. This is particularly problematic for parametric approaches such as Gaussian maximum likelihoodbased classifiers that have been the backbone of pixel-based multispectral classification methods. This issue has motivated investigation of alternatives, including regularization of the class covariance matrices, ensembles of weak classifiers, development of feature selection and extraction methods, adoption of nonparametric classifiers, and exploration of methods to exploit unlabeled samples via semi-supervised and active learning. Data sets are also quite large, motivating computationally efficient algorithms and implementations. This chapter provides an overview of the recent advances in classification methods for mapping vegetation using hyperspectral data. Three data sets that are used in the hyperspectral classification literature (e.g., Botswana Hyperion satellite data and AVIRIS airborne data over both Kennedy Space Center and Indian Pines) are described in Section 3.2 and used to illustrate methods described in the chapter. An additional high-resolution hyperspectral data set acquired by a SpecTIR sensor on an airborne platform over the Indian Pines area is included to exemplify the use of new deep learning approaches, and a multiplatform example of airborne hyperspectral data is provided to demonstrate transfer learning in hyperspectral image classification. Classical approaches for supervised and unsupervised feature selection and extraction are reviewed in Section 3.3. In particular, nonlinearities exhibited in hyperspectral imagery have motivated development of nonlinear feature extraction methods in manifold learning, which are outlined in Section 3.3.1.4. Spatial context is also important in classification of both natural vegetation with complex textural patterns and large agricultural fields with significant local variability within fields. Approaches to exploit spatial features at both the pixel level (e.g., co-occurrencebased texture and extended morphological attribute profiles [EMAPs]) and integration of segmentation approaches (e.g., HSeg) are discussed in this context in Section 3.3.2. Recently, classification methods that leverage nonparametric methods originating in the machine learning community have grown in popularity. An overview of both widely used and newly emerging approaches, including support vector machines (SVMs), Gaussian mixture models, and deep learning based on convolutional neural networks is provided in Section 3.4. Strategies to exploit unlabeled samples, including active learning and metric learning, which combine feature extraction and augmentation of the pool of training samples in an active learning framework, are outlined in Section 3.5. Integration of image segmentation with classification to accommodate spatial coherence typically observed in vegetation is also explored, including as an integrated active learning system. Exploitation of multisensor strategies for augmenting the pool of training samples is investigated via a transfer learning framework in Section 3.5.1.2. Finally, we look to the future, considering opportunities soon to be provided by new paradigms, as hyperspectral sensing is becoming common at multiple scales from ground-based and airborne autonomous vehicles to manned aircraft and space-based platforms

First record of the fangtooth moray, Enchelycore anatina (Actinopterygii : Anguilliformes : Muraenidae), from Maltese waters, Central Mediterranean

The fangtooth moray, Enchelycore anatina (Lowe, 1838), native to the eastern Atlantic Ocean but also known from eastern sections of the Mediterranean, is recorded for the fi rst time from Maltese coastal waters in the central Mediterranean. This record is the westernmost one within the Mediterranean and the observed E. anatina individual co-occurred with an individual of Muraena helena Linnaeus, 1758.peer-reviewe