University of Toronto: Journal Publishing Services
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Capitalizing Learning: A Critical Narrative Review of the Ontario Learning Skills and Work Habits
No full textThis paper presents a critical narrative review of Ontario’s Learning Skills and Work Habits (LSWH) policy, introduced in 1999 as part of a broader global movement to integrate skill development into education systems. Despite its intended purpose—to support student growth beyond academic achievement and foster communication between educators, students, and families—implementation of the LSWH framework has been fraught with challenges. This review identifies three persistent issues: the inconsistent and fragmented adoption of LSWHs across schools due to political and administrative barriers; the conceptual vagueness of LSWHs, which often align more closely with dominant cultural norms and employability expectations than with authentic learning processes; and the unintended consequences of the policy, which may reinforce systemic inequities rather than mitigate them. Through a critical lens, this paper argues that the LSWH framework, in its current form, risks undermining its own goals and calls for a reimagining of how learning skills are defined, assessed, and valued in Ontario’s education system
Predicting Protein Functions: A Deep Learning Approach to Unraveling Biological Complexity
No full textThis project addresses the critical challenge of predicting protein functions from amino acid sequences using machine learning approaches. With the exponential growth of genomic sequence data from various species, there is an urgent need for accurate computational methods to assign biological functions to proteins. Our work focuses on developing a predictive model that leverages both primary sequence data and complementary biological information to improve function prediction accuracy. The model will be trained on a comprehensive dataset of protein sequences with known functions, incorporating various features including amino acid composition, sequence patterns, and potentially other biological markers. This project addresses the critical challenge of predicting protein functions from amino acid sequences using a novel deep learning model. The model combines a transformer-based sequence encoder, an auxiliary feature integration layer, and a multi-label classification head to accurately predict multiple Gene Ontology (GO) terms for each input protein sequence. This research contributes to the broader field of functional genomics and has significant implications for understanding cellular mechanisms, disease pathways, and drug development. Success in this project could accelerate the annotation of newly discovered proteins and provide valuable insights for therapeutic interventions across various medical and agricultural applications
Understanding digital discrimination: analysing Marshall McLuhan’s work through a human rights lense
No full textThe use of artificial intelligence applications is proliferating. The human rights community is documenting the impact which the employment of artificial intelligence decision-making processes has on the values and rights protected by international human rights treaties. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance E. Tendayi Achiume emphasizes the need to consider the employment of digital technologies in light of the social, economic and political forces which shape the design and use of these technologies. This article employs Marshall McLuhan’s scholarship as a lens of analysis to investigate how the operation of artificial intelligence decision-making processes bears on the values which the prohibition of discrimination protects. It interprets McLuhan’s scholarship through a human rights lens. The paper identifies some of the ways in which the operation of artificial intelligence decision-making processes transforms the subjects of the decision-making and how other individuals perceive them. It uncovers the role of artificial intelligence decision-making processes in the production of inequality. 
Marshall McLuhan’s General Theory of Media (GtoM), His Laws of Media; Comparing Three Kinds of Law
No full textWe suggest that despite McLuhan’s claim not to have a theory of communication that in fact the body of his work does indeed constitute a theory of media and their effects which I have called his General Theory of Media (GToM) that also includes his Laws of Media (LoM). Both McLuhan’s GToM and his LoM are described. A comparison is made of three notions of law: i. McLuhan’s notion of law as used in his Laws of Media; ii. the notions of the Law in the legal sense and iii. the notion of law as formulated in scientific laws. McLuhan’s understanding of media is used to analyze some of the negative effects of social media suggesting that laws need to be formulated to prevent the misuse of social media that are antithetical to democracy and the invasion of the privacy of the individual users of these apps. McLuhan’s Laws of Media are then used to provide insights into the nature of scientific laws, the Law in the legal sense and his own Laws of Media
McLuhan and Carpenter: Tricksters at the Margins: A Postscript to Play Attention
No full text“It’s misleading to suppose there’s any basic difference between education and entertainment. This distinction merely relieves people of the responsibilities of looking into the matter” (Carpenter & McLuhan 1960, 3)
A Review of written matter, a book of poetry and photos by Andrew McLuhan
No full textwritten matter
by Andrew McLuhan
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