The Once and Future New Brunswick Free Press

New Brunswick was at the forefront of the diverse, unruly, and fiercely competitive free press of Canada’s Confederation era. Yet today over thirty newspapers of various types operate in New Brunswick, virtually all of them owned by the Irving interests. In the case of the proposed sale of NB Power to Hydro-Québec, this essay notes that the Irving press applauded the proposed lower power rates for large industrial users, including major Irving-owned industry. With minimal competition in New Brunswick’s media sector, this appeared to commentators as a conflict of interest. This essay will argue that the Irving media monopoly muffles debate in the province and that it is time to let in some fresh air through a modern, diverse, and competitive free press. Résumé Le Nouveau-Brunswick a été à l’avant-garde d’une presse libre diversifiée, irrévérencieuse et extrêmement concurrentielle pendant l’ère de la Confédération du Canada. Toujours est-il qu’aujourd’hui, plus de trente journaux de divers genres sont publiés au Nouveau-Brunswick, et presque tous appartiennent à Irving. Dans le cas de la vente proposée d’Énergie NB à Hydro-Québec, cet essai signale que les journaux appartenus par Irving rendaient hommage aux tarifs d’électricité plus bas proposés aux grands consommateurs industriels, y compris d’importantes entreprises appartenues par Irving. Étant donné qu’il y a très peu de concurrence dans le secteur de la presse au Nouveau-Brunswick, les commentateurs estimaient que la nouvelle semblait être un conflit d’intérêt. Cet essai propose que les médias monopolisés par Irving étouffent les débats dans la province, et qu’il est temps de laisser entrer une bouffée d’air frais par l’entremise d’une presse libre moderne, diversifiée et concurrentielle

Floristic Survey and Annotated Checklist of the Pine Bluff Arsenal

We conducted a floristic survey of the Pine Bluff Arsenal during the spring, summer, and fall of 1996. In total, 622 taxa representing 113 families and 351 genera were identified and compiled into an annotated checklist. The largest families were Asteraceae (79 genera), Poaceae (73 genera). Fabaceae (41 genera), and Cyperaceae (38 genera). Exotic species composed only 8.5% of the flora. Fifty-five of the specimens represent new records for Jefferson County

(Re-)constructing Disability through Research: Methodological Challenges of Intersectional Research in Informal Urban Settlements

This chapter argues that categorical approaches are needed to reveal structural and persistent identity-based inequalities and consolidate political consciousness, alongside anti-categorical approaches that aim to respect the agency and complexity of individual research participants. Disability, as a parameter of social identity, is highly associated with inequality in development outcomes. The understanding of the inequalities linked to disability is strongly associated with the competing ways in which it has been defined. The bio-psychosocial model has been presented as a way of integrating the physical, embodied aspects of disability with societal factors. The bio-psychosocial model, taking a person-centred approach, emphasises the importance of understanding disability as a continuum, with impairments only a part of the determinants of the range of abilities of each person, which constitute the human condition, and which vary between all individuals and vary across our life-cycles

The informal economy as a provider of assistive technology: lessons from Indonesia and Sierra Leone

Promoting the use of assistive technology (AT) is crucial for the health and well-being of users, but there is a huge global problem of unmet need for AT. In this context informal (unregulated) providers of AT play a significant role of meeting AT user need, particularly in less-resourced settings. This study draws on research into formal and informal AT provision in low-income urban communities in Indonesia and Sierra Leone to explore the potential of informal providers in addressing unmet need. Specifically, it looks at the different performance of formal and informal providers regarding the availability and the adequacy of AT that they provide. The study concludes by proposing further research into the scope for coproduction of AT between formal and informal providers

The Governance and Regulation of the Informal Economy: Implications for livelihoods and decent work

A large proportion of workers in the global economy derive their livelihoods from the ‘informal economy’, and these workers are more likely to experience unprotected and exploitative labour conditions. This chapter draws on literature that questions the relevance of a formal/informal dichotomy, and critiques the assumption that extension of state regulation of livelihoods is inherently desirable. Drawing on case study material from Freetown, Sierra Leone, it argues that while state actors play a crucial role in regulation to extend decent work, not all state regulatory practices are beneficial to workers, and that social regulation of livelihoods can also have an important role to play in protecting livelihoods and labour rights. Finally, it highlights the scope of co-production of livelihoods regulation by state and non-state actors

16S rRNA gene-based profiling of the human infant gut microbiota is strongly influenced by sample processing and PCR primer choice

Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the assistance of Grietje Holtrop (RINH-BioSS) with the statistical analysis of the data and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute’s 454 pyrosequencing team for generating 16S rRNA gene data. AWW, PS and JP received core funding support from the Wellcome Trust [grant number 098051]. AWW, JCM, HJF and KPS are funded by the Scottish Government (SG-RESAS).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Assistive Technology in urban low-income communities in Sierra Leone and Indonesia: Rapid Assistive Technology Assessment (rATA) survey results

The findings from the surveys presented in this report give a unique insight into disability prevalence and access to AT in five urban low-income communities in Sierra Leone and Indonesia, where a total of 4,256 individuals were surveyed using the rATA tool.4 Designed for the rapid evaluation of the need, use, supply and impact of AT, Rapid Assistive Technology Assessment (rATA) is a new survey from WHO. A version modified by the Development Planning Unit-University College London DPU/UCL) was conducted in September 2019 for the research project “AT2030 community led solutions”,5 as part of the AT2030 programme led by Global Disability Innovation Hub

A New Model for Predicting the Drag and Lift Forces of Turbulent Newtonian Flow on Arbitrarily Shaped Shells on the Seafloor

Currently, all forecasts of currents, waves, and seafloor evolution are limited by a lack of fundamental knowledge and the parameterization of small-scale processes at the seafloor-ocean interface. Commonly used Euler-Lagrange models for sediment transport require parameterizations of the drag and lift forces acting on the particles. However, current parameterizations for these forces only work for spherical particles. In this dissertation we propose a new method for predicting the drag and lift forces on arbitrarily shaped objects at arbitrary orientations with respect to the direction of flow that will ultimately provide models for predicting the sediment sorting processes that lead to the variability of shell fragments on inner shelf seafloors. We wish to develop the drag force parameterization specifically for a limpet shell through the linear regression of force estimated from high-fidelity Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations in OpenFOAM

Atomic scale modelling of the cores of dislocations in complex materials part 1: methodology

Dislocations influence many properties of crystalline solids, including plastic deformation, growth and dissolution, diffusion and the formation of polytypes. Some of these processes can be described using continuum methods but this approach fails when a description of the structure of the core is required. To progress in these types of problems, an atomic scale model is essential. So far, atomic scale modelling of the cores of dislocations has been limited to systems with rather simple crystal structures. In this article, we describe modifications to current methodology, which have been used for strongly ionic materials with simple structures. These modifications permit the study of dislocation cores in more structurally complex materials

Defects and dislocations in MgO: atomic scale models of impurity segregation and fast pipe diffusion

Dislocations are known to influence the formation and migration of point defects in crystalline materials. We use a recently developed method for the simulation of the cores of dislocations in ionic materials to study the energy associated with the formation of point defects close to the core of a ½{10} edge dislocation in MgO. These are then compared with the energies for the same point defects in otherwise perfect MgO. It is found that all of the defect species are bound to the dislocation core, with binding energies of between 1.5 and 2.0 eV. Vacancies are found to be most stable when they remove under-coordinated ions at the tip of the extra half plane, while the impurities are most stable within the dilatational stress field below the glide plane. By mapping the distribution of energies for point defects around the dislocation line we reveal the coupling between the effective point defect size and the stress field associated with the dislocation. We also examine the energy barrier to diffusion of vacancies along the dislocation line and find that vacancy migration along the dislocation line will be substantially enhanced compared to migration through the dislocation-free crystal structure. Activation energies are 0.85-0.92 of the barrier in the perfect crystal, demonstrating the importance of pipe diffusion along extended defects for low temperature mobility in ionic materials