Aliens vs. Citizens: Who are the Real Enemies of the State?

In today’s political climate where nationalism, protectionism and populism dominate the political discourse, democratic values are being interpreted in new ways. These interpretations give rise to fundamental democratic questions, such as: should certain aliens be allowed to have political rights when they have been living in, and contributing to, democratic countries for extended periods of time? This paper will contrast the political position and rights of Canadian citizens living abroad (expats) with those of permanent residents (aliens) living in Canada, demonstrating that the former have full democratic rights despite being geographically disassociated from domestic communities, while the latter are accorded no democratic rights despite contributing directly to the communities in which they reside. This raises the question of whether it is morally permissible to withhold democratic rights from certain aliens who contribute to their host society more than full citizens of that society who live abroad. Section one demonstrates how democracy is a tool for the institutionalization of liberal values. Section two shows how these values affect expats and aliens unequally and in a manner that is contrary to the values themselves, thus creating a statewide injustice. Lastly, section three presents an argument for eliminating the exclusion faced by aliens in order to resolve the contradiction in liberal democratic values. There are three distinct types of aliens in Canada: visitors, convention refugees, and permanent residents. For the most part, this essay is not concerned with the first two. This is because visitors are, as the name suggests, only in the country for a short period of time. They will not be there long enough to establish the vested interest that is required to share in the collective burdens and benefits of Canadian democratic society. Convention refugees, defined by the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, fall into another category, with which this paper is not concerned. Aliens, in the context of this paper, are permanent residents. Applications for Permanent Resident status must be made from outside of Canada and applicants are selected according to the government’s immigration criteria. Permanent Residents can be skilled workers, entrepreneurs, investors, self-employed persons, or family members of any of the aforementioned people

Salience and social meaning in speech production and perception

Research has shown that phonetic features can index social meaning, yet less is known about whether this phenomenon occurs in the same way in speech production and speech perception. In particular, one of the factors that most seems to affect variables’ capacity for social meaning-making is the notion of salience. This thesis addresses the question of how phonetic variation points to social meaning in speech production and perception and what role salience plays in influencing this process. I investigate these issues using a sociophonetic study of two phonetic variables currently undergoing change in the South of England – /t/-glottalling and GOOSE-fronting – as produced and perceived by adolescents at a state school and a private school in Hampshire, UK. While the former is reported to be highly salient with strong socio-indexical relations, the latter is said not to be very salient and to lack associations with speakers’ social characteristics. The production results show that /t/-glottalling displays macro-sociological variation in the community, while GOOSE-fronting varies between peer groups within the private school. Both features can be used to index stances in interaction, but this effect is much stronger for /t/-glottalling. In perception, listeners were easily able to notice glottal /t/ in auditory stimuli and consistently associated it with a set of related social meanings, yet this was not the case for fronted GOOSE. The findings have implications for our understanding of how the social meanings of phonetic variables are produced and perceived by the same individuals, especially in the contexts of adolescent peer groups at school and social stratification between different types of school. I argue that researchers employing the construct of salience in sociolinguistics should acknowledge the limitations and different dimensions of the concept and operationalise these in their study design

Hot and Cold: Quantifying the Variation of Sentiment in Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

Since the appointment of John M. Harlan II in 1955, every Supreme Court nominee has testified in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. These hearings provide a fertile ground for senator ideologies, partisanship, and political forces to be on full display. However, little research has systematically analyzed confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees. In this paper, quantitative sentiment analysis is used on the transcripts of Supreme Court confirmation hearings between 1969 and 2018. By leveraging sentiment analysis, the attitudes of each of the senators during the hearings can be measured. Investigating the correlative impact that variables at the senator, institution, and nomination levels have on sentiment creates a better understanding of the factors that may influence a senator’s attitude during the hearings. A positive correlative effect on sentiment was found with an increase in the percentage of the vote the nominating president received during his most recent election in the senator’s home state. A positive correlation was also found when the nominating president and a senator were members of the same political party. Additionally, a statistically significant negative correlation was measured when the departing justice was a swing voter and when the hearing was aired on television. This research points to new avenues for using textual data to study partisanship and ideological polarization

Kelly’s story: transformative identity work in primary mathematics teacher education

This article explores one female student teacher’s experiences of learning to teach mathematics. Data included weekly emails and an interview through which Kelly expressed her struggle to be recognised as mathematical and to be heard in pedagogical relationships within a subject that is discursively aligned with masculinity. Analysis drew on feminist post-structural understandings of discourse and power relations. I identify an array of discourses of gender, mathematics, ability, confidence and complex micro-relations of power which shaped her ‘identity work’ and examine how she was able to reposition herself positively as a teacher of mathematics, resisting dominant transmission-based approaches to teaching mathematics. While the course sought to challenge traditional mathematical pedagogies, gendered ways of being mathematical were not confronted. I argue that teacher educators need to pay attention to the way power circulates to marginalise and silence some students and to focus on transformation of their own identity work

The Influence of Women in Vardis Fisher’s Western Literature

Vardis Fisher, a writer who wrote about the early west, uses his life experiences and extensive historical research as a basis for his western novels. With his background in the Antelope region and his historical research, Fisher presents both women in the Antelope hills and women in the hazardous far west surroundings. He instills in the reader a panoramic view of the pioneer women as they experience life in the old west. The Antelope women are isolated in their environment with little social contact. They are effected physically, psychologically, and economically in this remote area. Most of the women overcome the obsticles of the environment and work physically to make economic progress to enable their children to experience a better life than they have known. Their greatest dilemma is the loneliness in their surroundings. The far west women are effected physically, psychologically, and economically, but they suffer greater devastation than the Antelope women. They experience extensive journeys into the unknown and are confronted with many hazards. These women often experience the pain of death of loved ones and some are forced to animal-like existence to enable their family to survive. Both the Antelope Hills and the far west women undergo unique changes with the majority attaining new levels of competence. The women endure in Antelope and the far west, but survival is more difficult in the far west. The women in both areas emerge as the bed-rock of the spirit of the old west

Heavy Metal Contamination Along the Coast of North-East England

The last century has seen the north east coast of England heavily aected by anthropogenic activities, none more notable than the coal mining industry, and the millions of tonnes of colliery waste estimated to have been dumped every year. Since the decline of the industry and subsequent remedial work carried out by the Turning the Tide Partnership, investigation of the coastline has been minimal. The purpose of this investigation is to consider the industrial forcing of the natural ecosystem which exists along the north east coast of England, and analyse the impacts of remediation in accelerating the recovery of the area from a state of economic exploitation, to natural habitat and environmental resource. Giusti et al. (1999) conducted a study which collected heavy metal data from the shell and tissue material of Mytilus edulis (the blue mussel) at five coastal locations along the north east of England, during the early stages of remediation (December 1997). A second study (Giusti, 2001) monitored the heavy metal contamination of Fucus vesiculosus (bladderwrack) along the coast during the same period. This investigation has provided comparative heavy metal data to these baselines, allowing assessments of the level of recovery to be made, while highlighting current areas of concern and the implications of post-remediation activity. The concentrations of Fe, Mn, Zn, Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni and Cd were determined in both the soft tissue and shell material of the blue mussel and common limpet (Patella vulgata) at several sites between Whitburn and the Tees estuary. Bladderwrack is included as a sensitive short term indicator of water based heavy metal contamination. Although the investigation finds that the long term metal contamination of the coastline has decreased, a change in the spatial pattern of pollution is observed, manifested by an increase in metal concentrations at the Tees estuary site of Bran Sands. The mobilisation and transport of offshore sediment is discussed as a possible causal factor. High levels of iron and manganese are recorded in all three indicators, suggesting an aqueous source. These high values include a 9-fold increase in iron contamination of bladderwrack (to ∼9,000 mg kg-1), and a 12-fold increase of manganese in bladderwrack at Roker estuary (to ∼1,600 mg kg-1). Subsequently, tentative links are drawn to the pumping of treated minewater into the sea at Horden and Dawdon

Vision-based autonomous aircraft payload delivery system

This research sought to design and develop an autonomous aircraft payload delivery system which utilised an onboard computer vision system for drop-zone identification. The research was tasked at achieving a modular system which could be used in the delivery of a given payload within a 5 m radius of designated drop-zone identifier. An integrated system was developed, where an autonomous flight controller, an onboard companion computer and computer vision system formed the physical hardware utilised to achieve the desired objectives. A Linux-based Robotic Operating System software architecture was used to develop the control algorithms which governed the autonomous flight control, object recognition and tracking through image processing, and payload release trajectory modelling of the system. The hardware and software architectures were integrated into a remote control fixed-wing aircraft for testing. Implementation of the system through simulation and physical testing proved successful and payload delivery was achieved at an altitude of 75 m, within an average displacement of 1.82 m from the true drop-zone location, where drop-zone detection and location were determined through autonomous survey over the approximate drop-zone’s location. This research furthered the development of autonomous aircraft delivery systems by introducing computer vision as a means of drop-zone location confirmation and authentication, allowing for greater payload delivery security and efficiency. The results gathered in this research illustrated the possible applications of modular airborne payload delivery systems into Industry 4.0 through the use of such a system in the service delivery sector