Paradokseja ja arvoituksia : puutarhojen ja kaupunkiluonnon esteettisestä arvostamisesta

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Varieties Of Social Unionism: Towards a Framework for Comparison

In academic and activist debates about union renewal, the replacement of business unionism with social unionism is seen as central to the labour movement's short- and long-term survival. Social unionism, generally understood to involve both engagement with social justice struggles beyond the workplace and methods of union activity beyond the collective bargaining process, is claimed to increase the labour movement's organizing capacity, bargaining power, and social and political weight. However, despite its increased importance, social unionism's various meanings, strategies, and implications remain relatively unexamined, and very different approaches are often lumped together. Using concepts from social movement theory, this paper proposes an analytical framework for systematically comparing different concrete manifestations of social unionism. In particular, social unionist initiatives vary according to 1) the ethos or collective action frame used to rationalize union activity; 2) the repertoire or strategic means used to act on that ethos; and 3) the internal organizational practices and power relations which shape who is involved in defining and carrying out union goals and initiatives. I argue that whether social unionist projects are able to reach immediate instrumental goals as well as generate renewed working class / movement capacity is shaped by both the mix of frame, repertoire and organizational practice as well as the relationship between these three. The paper therefore asserts that the category "social unionism" must be more nuanced, and calls for a more explicitly comparative and multi-methodological approach to reveal such complexity

Paradoxes and Puzzles: Appreciating Gardens and Urban Nature

To explore our appreciation of gardens and urban nature, I propose a recursive definition of original or wild nature together with guidelines for discerning degrees of naturalness. Arguing (contra Robert Elliott) that nature can be restored as well as degraded, I characterize four varieties of urban nature - interrupted, altered, constructed, and virtual. I build on Stan Godlovitch\u27s comments about scale to suggest two modes of appreciation - macroscopic and fine-focused. I close by discussing some particular examples - parks, environmental art, gardens - and drawing some conclusions for the appreciation of vernacular gardens.[1

Book Review: Labour Left Out: Canada’s Failure to Protect and Promote Collective Bargaining as a Human Right

Review of Labour Left Out: Canada’s Failure to Protect and Promote Collective Bargaining as a Human Right, by Roy J. Adam

Camfield, David. 2011. Canadian Labour in Crisis: Reinventing the Workers’ Movement

Camfield, David. 2011. Canadian Labour in Crisis: Reinventing the Workers’ Movement. Halifax: Fernwood. ISBN 978-1-55266-416-2. Paperback: 19.95 CAD. Pages: 160

The effects of muscle tissue mass on contractile performance

Skeletal muscles are the motors that drive human and animal locomotion. Yet despite their fundamental importance, our understanding of whole muscle behaviour is relatively limited due to practical and ethical considerations that hinder accurate in vivo measures. To estimate the behaviour of whole muscles, measures of single fibres or fibre bundles are often extrapolated to larger sizes without considering the consequences of the greater muscle mass. The goal of this thesis was to determine the effects of muscle mass on the contractile performance of whole skeletal muscles. In my first study, I developed a novel modelling framework to test different Hill-type model formulations under a range of cyclic contractile conditions. I then used this framework in my second study to examine the effects of distributed muscle mass on mass-specific mechanical work per cycle during cyclic contractions. I found that when the mass-enhanced muscle model was geometrically scaled from the size of a fibre bundle up to a whole human plantarflexor muscle, the mass-specific work per cycle decreased. In my third study, I examined the effects of muscle mass on the contractile behaviour of in situ rat plantaris muscle to validate the mass-enhanced Hill-type muscle model in my second study. In the fourth study of my thesis, I simulated cyclic contractions of a 3D continuum muscle model that accounts for tissue mass across a range of muscle sizes. I additionally compared the effects of greater muscle mass on tissue accelerations of the 3D muscle model to that of the in situ rat plantaris muscle from my third study to qualitatively validate the model simulations. I found that increasing the mass of the 3D muscle increased its volume-specific kinetic energy and was associated with lower mass-specific mechanical work per cycle. In my fifth study, I examined the effects of muscle mass on the metabolic cost and efficiency of muscle during cyclic contractions and how tendons of different stiffnesses alter these relationships. I found that larger muscles with greater mass are less efficient, primarily due to lower mass-specific mechanical work, and that the work and efficiency penalty of larger muscles can be offset to a certain extent by a tendon of optimal stiffness. Taken together, the results of these studies highlight that muscle mass is an important determinant of whole skeletal muscle behaviour

Event-Related Potentials in Episodic and Semantic Memory: Distinguishing the N400 from the fN400

In the present study, we conducted an event-related potentials (ERP) study to examine episodic and semantic memory. We focused on two well-known patterns: the semantic N400 and the old/new fN400. Some researchers have argued that they reflect the same neuropsychological response (Voss & Federmeier, 2011). Others have suggested that they have distinct spatial-temporal signatures and reflect different psychological processes (Bridger, Bader, Kriukova, Unger, & Mecklinger, 2012). In the present study, we analyzed data using the basic N400/fN400 paradigm. We expect to find similar results to Bridger et al. (2012) in that the N400 and fN400 to be reliably different in topography and function

Going beyond the individual: How state-level characteristics relate to HPV vaccine rates in the United States

Abstract Background The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is an underutilized cancer control practice in the United States. Although individual contextual factors are known to impact HPV vaccine coverage rates, the impact of macro-level elements are still unclear. The aim of this analysis was to use HPV vaccination rates to explore the underuse of an evidence-based cancer control intervention and explore broader-level correlates influencing completion rates. Methods A comprehensive database was developed using individual-level date from the National Immunization Survey (NIS)-Teen (2016) and state-level data collected from publically available sources to analyze HPV vaccine completion. Multi-level logistic models were fit to identify significant correlates. Level-1 (individual) and level-2 (state) correlates were fitted to a random intercept model. Deviance and AIC assessed model fit and sampling weights were applied. Results The analysis included 20,495 adolescents from 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Teen age, gender, race/ethnicity, and maternal education were significant individual predictors of HPV completion rates. Significant state-level predictors included sex education policy, religiosity, and HPV vaccine mandate. States with the lowest HPV coverage rates were found to be conservative and highly religious. Little variation in vaccine exemptions and enacted sex and abstinence education polices were observed between states with high and low HPV vaccine coverage suggesting various contextual and situational factors impact HPV vaccine completion rates. Conclusions Given that gender, religiosity, political ideology, and education policies are predictors of HPV vaccine completion, the interaction and underlying mechanism of these factors can be used to address the underutilization of the HPV vaccine

Stress and Prosocial Decision Making: The Influence of Acute Stress on Trust Behavior

While acute stress exposure has been associated with modulation of risk-taking in decision making, the influence of stress on social decision making and trust has not been well-researched. The current study aims to advance scientific understanding of how stress influences trust behavior. Ninety-six participants (49 male and 47 female) engaged in an adapted Trust Game task, randomly assigned between-subjects to either an acute stress (cold pressor test or socially evaluative cold pressor test) or control group. The Trust Game was administered at different time points with respect to stress exposure to examine the potential differential roles of temporally distinct stress pathways (i.e., sympatho-adrenomedullary versus hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity). Stress-related sympathetic activation and HPA activation was observed for both acute stress groups compared to the control as well as subjective ratings of stress and affect. Participants exposed to acute stress (with or without a social evaluative component) exhibited reduced trust investing significantly less money in their Trust Game counterparts. No significant difference in investment was observed by timing of stress. Further, across all groups males invested significantly more money than females. Overall, exposure to acute stress elicited lower levels of trust suggesting stress may lead to “socially” risk-averse decision making. This finding replicates observations from a recent study on stress effects on trust decisions, though given limited research strong conclusions are premature. Additionally, lack of significant investment differences between stress groups involving social evaluation (or not) suggests social evaluation is not required to elicit reduced trust