Managing Charter Equality Rights: The Supreme Court of Canada’s Disposition of Leave to Appeal Applications in Section 15 Cases, 1989-2010

Through a study of the Court’s disposition of 177 leave to appeal applications in s.15 cases since 1989, the authors examine the role of the Supreme Court of Canada in guiding the development of Charter equality rights jurisprudence. The data reveals that the grant rate on leave applications in s.15 cases has declined markedly since the late 1990s, reaching historic lows in the past five years. The grant rate in s.15 cases has declined more precipitously than the grant rate in Charter cases as a whole, even though s.15 jurisprudence remains in an unsettled and unsatisfactory state, and even though the Court continues to be presented with compelling applications for leave to appeal in s.15 cases. When the Court has granted leave in s.15 cases in recent years, the Court has dismissed s.15 claims perfunctorily in a majority of cases as other legal issues took centre-stage. The data also reveals that the chances of being granted leave in s.15 cases, and of succeeding on appeal to the Supreme Court, are much higher for governments. The authors conclude that the Court has played a significant role, through its management of the appeal process, in directing a restricted scope for Charter equality rights

Managing Charter Equality Rights: The Supreme Court of Canada’s Disposition of Leave to Appeal Applications in Section 15 Cases, 1989-2010

Through a study of the Court’s disposition of 177 leave to appeal applications in section 15 cases since 1989, the authors examine the role of the Supreme Court of Canada in guiding the development of Charter equality rights jurisprudence. The data reveal that the grant rate on leave applications in section 15 cases has declined markedly since the late 1990s, reaching historic lows in the past five years. The grant rate in section 15 cases has declined more precipitously than the grant rate in Charter cases as a whole, even though section 15 jurisprudence remains in an unsettled and unsatisfactory state, and even though the Court continues to be presented with compelling applications for leave to appeal in section 15 cases. When the Court has granted leave in section 15 cases in recent years, it has dismissed section 15 claims perfunctorily in a majority of cases as other legal issues took centre stage. The data also reveal that the chances of being granted leave in section 15 cases, and of succeeding on appeal to the Supreme Court, are much higher for governments. The authors conclude that the Court has played a significant role, through its management of the appeal process, in directing a restricted scope for Charter equality rights

Hyperdominant left anterior descending artery presenting as anterior wall ST segment elevation myocardial infarction: A rare coronary anomaly

We report on a 75 year-old man who presented with severe chest pain for four hours. Physical examination was unremarkable and he was haemodynamically stable. ECG done in the ED showed ST segment elevations along with Q waves in the anterior and inferior leads with T wave inversions. He was rushed to the catheterization lab where the left anterior descending (LAD) artery was 99%occluded in the proximal segment while distal left circumflex showed 50-60% lesion. He underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention to LAD with drug eluting stent and made an uneventful recovery. The LADwas found to be wrapping around the apex and continuing as the posterior descending artery (PDA). To the best of our knowledge, there are few case reports on the continuation of LAD across the left ventricular apex as PDA in the presence of a normally arising but small right coronary artery

Twiddlers syndrome presenting as life threatening electrical storm

A 75-year-old man underwent implantation of a single chamber implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) for primary prevention of his underlying severe non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy. Thirteen months later, he presented to the emergency room(ER) with inappropriate ICD shocks as a result of over sensing of the right ventricular lead and double counting of the right atrial signals. The chest X-ray (CXR) revealed a right ventricular ICD lead displaced into the right atrium with coiling in the pocket. The right ventricular shocking coil was noted at the tricuspid annulus. The lead was removed from the pocket and was replaced with a new lead. This case represents the classical Twiddler\u27s syndrome in an ICD with potential lethal consequences

Pleuro pericardial cyst

A 68-year-old male, presented with exertional dyspnoea and chest pain in his anterior chest wall for 3 months. He had no previous history of cardiac disease. Clinical examination failed to show anything significant. Chest X-ray showed a mass superimposed over the upper cardiac silhouette. He was further evaluated by chest CT, which showed a cystic mass in the anterior mediastinum measuring 9 x 7 cm in its maximum diameter. On surgical excision and histopathological examination, findings were consistent with benign pleuropericardial cyst, confirming the earlier diagnosis

Damping of Electromechanical Oscillations in Power Systems using Wide Area Control

The design of local H∞-based power system stabilizer (PSS) controllers, which uses widearea or global signals as additional measuring information from suitable remote network locations, where oscillations are well observable, is developed in this dissertation. The controllers, placed at suitably selected generators, provide control signals to the automatic voltage regulators (AVRs) to damp out inter-area oscillations through the machines’ excitation systems. A long time delay introduced by remote signal transmission and processing in wide area measurement system (WAMS), may be harmful to system stability and may degrade system robustness. Three methods for dealing with the effects of time delay are presented in this dissertation. First, time delay compensation method using lead/lag compensation along with gain scheduling for compensating effects of constant delay is presented. In the second method, Pade approximation approach is used to model time delay. The time delay model is then merged into delay-free power system model to obtain the delayed power system model. Delay compensation and Pade approximation methods deal with constant delays and are not robust regarding variable time delays. Time delay uncertainty is, therefore, taken into account using linear fractional transformation (LFT) method. The design of local decentralized PSS controllers, using selected suitable remote signals as supplementary inputs, for a separate better damping of specific inter-area modes is also presented in this dissertation. The suitable remote signals used by local PSS controllers are selected from the whole system. Each local PSS controller is designed separately for each of the inter-area modes of interest. The PSS controller uses only those local and remote input signals in which the assigned single inter-area mode is most observable and is located at a generator which is most effective in controlling that mode. The local PSS controller, designed for a particular single inter-area mode, also works mainly in a frequency band given by the natural frequency of the assigned mode. The locations of the local PSS controllers are obtained based on the amplitude gains of the frequency responses of the best-suited measurement to the inputs of all generators in the interconnected system. For the selection of suitable local and supplementary remote input signals, the features or measurements from the whole system are preselected first by engineering judgment and then using a clustering feature selection technique. Final selection of local and remote input signals is based on the degree of observability of the considered single mode in them. Finally, this dissertation presents the extension of the scheme, described in the above paragraph, to very large power systems. The suitable remote signals used by local PSS controllers are selected from the whole system. The approach uses system identification technique for deriving an equivalent lower order state-space linear model suitable for control design. An equivalent lower order system of the actual system is determined from time-domain simulation data of the latter. The time-domain response is obtained by applying a test probing signal (input signal), used to perturb the actual system, to the AVR of the excitation system of the actual system. The measured time-domain response is then transformed into frequency domain. An identification algorithm is then applied to the frequency response data to obtain a linear dynamic reduced order model which accurately represents the system. Lower-order equivalent models have been used for the final selection of suitable local and remote input signals for the PSS controllers, selection of suitable locations of the PSS controllers and design of the PSS controllers