114 research outputs found
Molecular characterization of Giardia spp. and Cryptosporidium spp. from dogs and coyotes in an urban landscape suggests infrequent occurrence of zoonotic genotypes
No full textGiardia spp. and Cryptosporidium spp. are common gastrointestinal parasites with the potential for zoonotic transmission. This study aimed to (1) determine the genotypes occurring in dogs and coyotes occupying a similar urban area; (2) determine if these hosts were infected with potentially zoonotic genotypes; (3) provide baseline molecular data. In August and September 2012, 860 dog owners living in neighborhoods bordering six urban parks in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, provided faecal samples from their dogs. From March 2012 through July 2013, 193 coyote faeces were also collected from five of six of the same parks. Direct immunofluorescence microscopy (DFA) indicated that Giardia spp. and Cryptosporidium spp. infected a total of 64 (7.4%) and 21 (2.4%) dogs, as well as 15 (7.8%) and three (1.6%) coyotes, respectively. Semi-nested, polymerase chain reactions targeting the 16S small-subunit ribosomal ribonucleic acid (SSU rRNA) and 18S SSU rRNA genes of Giardia spp. and Cryptosporidium spp., respectively, were conducted on samples that screened positive by DFA, and products were sequenced and genotyped. Dogs were infected with Giardia intestinalis canid-associated assemblages C (n=14), D (n=13), and Cryptosporidium canis (n=3). Similarly, G. intestinalis assemblages C (n=1), D (n=1) and C. canis (n=1), were detected in coyotes, as well as G. intestinalis assemblage A (n=1) and Cryptosporidium spp. vole genotype (n=1). Dogs and coyotes were predominantly infected with host-specific genotypes and few potentially zoonotic genotypes, suggesting that they may not represent a significant risk for zoonotic transmission of these parasites in urban areas where these hosts are sympatric
Interlocutrix
No full textThe research I performed during the MAA program was focused on establishing a theoretical framework for creative and collaborative participation, using dialogue and encounter in place-specific contexts. I discuss the development of this methodology through a narrative progression of four artworks. Performed over the course of the program, my practice-based research brought forward themes and questions related to institutional, public and social spaces as sites for dialogue and participation. For the graduate project, Archive Encounters, I worked with five community members inside the archive and collections of a regional social history museum. These individuals were associated with the Campbell River Arts Council in various ways, involved in public art, writing, education and community organization in the local area. In the archives, I played the role of interlocutrix to open up a space of dialogue with my participatory audience, responsive to each individual’s living archive of memory. The interlocutrix is the feminine form of interlocutor, a theatrical term for one who initiates dialogue with an audience. Inside the collections room, the audience/participants were given access to the artifacts in storage and a projecting digital camera. Each person used the tool to capture and project a series of images onto the artifacts. Encountering personal and collective narratives in the process, we played with the surfaces of memory and form, exploring shifting and contingent meaning. The projections were documented, resulting in a collection of digital images that formed a secondary body of work. To support dialogical and participatory aesthetics with an audience, I look to the critical theories of Paulo Freire (dialogue) Grant Kester (dialogical aesthetics), and Pablo Helguera (participation). Doreen Massey, Michel DeCerteau and Henri Lefevbre informed the development of a critical framework when working with the elements of space and place in an artwork. The writing of Liza Graziose Corrin informed a dialogical methodology for my artistic research performed inside the contemporaneous museum
Implementasi Algoritma Greedy untuk Optimasi Aksi Computer Player dalam Permainan Kartu Capsa Banting
No full textPermainan kartu adalah jenis permainan yang sudah lama ada dan tidak asing lagi bagi seluruh kalangan masyarakat, baik trading cards ataupun playing cards. Permainan kartu ini pada umumnya dimainkan dengan lebih dari 1 orang. Tetapi seiring berkembangnya teknologi permainan kartu ini menjadi mungkin dimainkan seorang diri dengan munculnya program yang dapat memainkan suatu permainan dengan aksi tertentu atau lebih dikenal dengan Computer Player. Banyak algoritma yang bisa diterapkan pada Computer Player ini tergantung dari permainan yang akan dimainkan. Contoh permainan kartu yang bisa menjadi bisa dimainkan seorang diri karena adanya Computer Player adalah permainan kartu Capsa Banting. Pada penelitian ini penulis menawarkan sebuah cara penggunaan algoritma pemilihan kartu yang dapat digunakan untuk menentukan kartu terbaik yang bisa dikeluarkan oleh Computer Player. “Capsa banting” merupakan permainan kartu yang dirancang untuk smartphone berbasis android. Permainan ini menerapkan peraturan dasar permainan kartu pada umumnya, yaitu menghabiskan kartu di tangan secepat mungkin untuk memenangkan permainan. Oleh karena itu dibutuhkan sebuah cara agar kartu yang dikeluarkan adalah kartu terbaik yang dapat dikeluarkan. Untuk pemilihan kartu tersebut maka digunakan algoritma Greedy.
Untuk uji coba digunakan 4 pemain Computer Player, yang masing-masing menggunakan algoritma Greedy, yang akan memainkan permainan sebanyak 30 kali dimana setiap Computer Player memiliki tingkat kesulitan yang berbeda-beda. Terdapat 3 tingkat kesulitan yang diterapkan untuk Computer Playernya yaitu easy, medium, dan hard. Hasilnya, Computer Player selalu mengeluarkan kartu yang terbaik yang dapat dikeluarkan pada tiap putarannya dengan hasil akhir Computer Player tingkat kesulitan hard memenangkan permainan lebih banyak daripada easy dan medium. Oleh karena itu dapat dikatakan bahwa algoritma Greedy ini bisa diterapkan dalam permainan kartu Capsa Banting.
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Card games is a game that has long existed and familiar to all circles of society, whether it is trading cards or playing cards.Cards games are usually played by more than 1 person or player. But as technology advances theses card games become possible to played alone with the appearance of a program which can play a game with particular action, better known as Computer Player. There are a lot of algorithms that can be implemented in these Computer Players depending on the games to beplayed. An example of a card game which can be played alone with the help of Computer Players is Big 2 card game. “Capsa Banting” is a card game designed for an Android-based Smartphone. This game implements the basic rules of card games in general, which is to spend the card in hand as fast as possible and win the game. In this study the author offers a way of using a cardselecting algorithm which can be used to determine the best card the Computer Player can play. Therefore it is crucial to make sure that the card played is the best card possible. Thus for the card selection, Greedy Algorithm is used Trials will use 4 Computer Players with Greedy algorithm implemented, which has different difficulty level, playing 30 matches. There are 3 levels of difficulties implemented in the game, which are easy, medium, and hard. The results are, the Computer Players successfully played the best card possible on each turn of the game, which ultimately leading to the Computer Player with hard difficulty implemented, winning more matches than the Computer Players with easy or medium difficulties
A Review of the Taxonomy, Genetics and Biology of the Genus Escherichia and the Type Species Escherichia coli
No full textHistorically, bacteriologists have relied heavily on biochemical and structural phenotypes for bacterial taxonomic classification. However, advances in comparative genomics has led to greater insights into the remarkable genetic diversity within the microbial world, and even within well-accepted species such as Escherichia coli. The extraordinary genetic diversity in E. coli recapitulates the evolutionary radiation of this species in exploiting a wide range of niches (i.e., ecotypes), including the gastrointestinal system of diverse vertebrate hosts as well as non-host natural environments (soil, natural waters, wastewater), which drives the adaptation, natural selection and evolution of intragenotypic conspecific specialism as a strategy for survival. Over the last several years, a growing body of evidence suggests that many E. coli strains appear to be very host (or niche)-specific. While biochemical and phylogenetic evidence support the classification of E. coli as a distinct species, the vast genomic (diverse pan-genome and intragenotypic variability), phenotypic (e.g., metabolic pathways), and ecotypic (host-/niche-specificity) diversity, comparable to the diversity observed in known species complexes, suggests that E. coli is better represented as a complex. Herein we review the taxonomic classification of the genus Escherichia and discuss how phenotype, genotype and ecotype recapitulate our understanding of the biology of this remarkable bacterium.The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the pdf file of the accepted manuscript may differ slightly from what is displayed on the item page. The information in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript reflects the original submission by the author
Thomas Tryon, (biographical Index no.101027783); William Banting, (Index no. 101001320); Jonathan Green, (Index no. 101011392); Howard Williams,(Index no. 101041000); Josiah Oldfield, (Index no. 101040999); Ernest Bell, (Index no. 101040996)
No full textThese new DNB entries trace the lives of various auto-didact nutritionists and hygiene enthusiasts. Thomas Tryon was the leader of a fashionable vegetarian circle in London and a popular author on health at the end of the seventeenth century; Jonathan Green was the proprietor of a famous set of medicinal 'fumigating' or vapour baths in London between c 1820-50; William Banting promoted a highly successful, European-wide, high-protein slimming diet in the 1860s; Josiah Oldfield was a popular medical author and supporter of vegetarianism, the Fruitarians, humanitarianism, and founded the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment in 1901; Howard Williams was a historian of vegetarianism, an anti-vivisectionist, and helped found the Humanitarian League in 1890; Ernest Bell was a publisher with links to the Vegetarian Society, the Humanitarian League, and numerous late-nineteenth century animal welfare groups
Stasis Amidst Change: Canadian Pension Reform in an Age of Retrenchment
No full textFaced with aging populations and especially heightened fiscal constraints, large scale pension reforms were implemented in many affluent democracies during the 1990s. Canadian reforms, by contrast, were quite modest and old age security benefits emerged largely unscathed. Drawing on the comparative experience of other OECD nations, we highlight four characteristics of the Canadian pension system and the policy environment to account for this relative stability:(1) the comparatively modest scale of Canadian public sector pension expenditures; (2) relatively greater reliance on general revenue as opposed to payroll taxes to finance these expenditures; (3) the availability of other expenditure targets, notably health care, post-secondary education and social assistance, that could be cut with less political backlash; and (4) a pension design that allocates the public sector share disproportionately to the bottom end of the income distribution, precluding the emergence of the oppositional politics that fueled public debate elsewhere.aging population; pension reform
Recognizing the Alien: Science Fiction Storyworlds and the Reader’s Reality
No full textThis project is a critical study of the science fiction storyworld as the platform for the genre to contribute meaningfully to the literary canon. In the process of world-building, the author weaves a fabric of world elements in the categories of nominal, natural, cultural, and ontological. Through the crafting of an alien, secondary world, the author creates binary parallels between the reader’s reality and the fictional world. The reader is encouraged to engage with the text by filling the gap between worlds, and thus critically think about their own status quo. The secondary world is formed using departures from the current reality and these departures juxtapose the unfamiliar elements with the familiarities that go unchecked because of their ubiquitous nature. The science fiction storyworld disembodies social issues from their human categories and allows the reader to reconsider perspectives while distanced from the self.
Received Honourable Mention for the 2021 Mount Royal University Library Awards for Research Excellence in the Senior Individual Award Category
Health Care in Rural Communities: Exploring the Development of Informal and Voluntary Care
No full textNation-state restructuring has resulted in significant political, economic and social change in rural communities. One manifestation of this transformation has been the changing nature of local governance, characterised by the re-working of central-local relations and public- private responsibilities, such that local informal and voluntary sectors now play an active and direct role in the organisation and delivery of health care services. This paper investigates the relationship between the changing nature of local governance and the provision of health care services, and places it within the context of rural communities and population aging in Canada. In particular, it considers the ascendancy of informal and voluntary sectors with respect to homecare in rural Ontario, and features an analysis of data from the National Population Health Survey and the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, representing user (demand) and provider (supply) perspectives respectively. The results provide a cross-section of informal and voluntary home care in the late 1990s, which indicates that informal and voluntary sectors are major players in the local organisation and delivery of health care services in rural communities. This suggests that the current state of health care provision in rural communities of Ontario is affected very much by the changing nature of local governance associated with restructuring. The 'snap-shot' of health care in rural communities presented in this paper highlights the need to examine further the relationship between governance and health care services at the local level. It also points to the need for more detailed data sets that integrate health, informal and voluntary care data at meaningful geographical and administrative scales to reflect clearly rural communities in Canada.health care; rural communities
Studying Flourishing and Non-Flourishing in Mathematics A Review of Francis Su’s Mathematics for Human Flourishing with reflections by Christopher Jackson
No full textDr. Francis Su uses an autobiography (or a dual autobiography) to discuss an issue in mathematics: it is often non-flourishing. When crafting this Euler Book Prize winner, Su and his co-author, Christopher Jackson, drew on their own personal experiences to educate and inspire readers to want to do (and teach) mathematics
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