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Research investigating the potential of standards for the build, operation, and maintenance phases of small water and wastewater systems in the Canadian North was conducted to identify opportunities for standards to help ensure safe, accessible, and high-quality drinking water and sanitation for all northerners. This involved a review of literature, a survey of northern water system users and practitioners, and key informant interviews. The study highlights a general trend of low adaptation to local conditions for standardization documents on many technical topics in northern Canada. A number of major themes and corresponding recommendations are subsequently drawn with respect to potential for standardization efforts. Of these, training and certification/classification were identified as a key area that has many gaps, challenges, and potential opportunities with respect to the use of standardized procedures for small-scale water and wastewater systems. Subsequently, this is also identified as the area where standardization efforts may have the broadest social benefit, urgency, as well as potential feasibility.

Soaring healthcare costs, increasing rates of chronic illness, and an aging population have left Canada struggling to meet the growing demands for quality health care. Hospitals battle to cope with altering patient demand, higher costs, provincially imposed global budgets, fast developing technology, rigid rules, new drugs, and social inequalities that lead to poor health. Canadian population health trends have played an important role in examining innovation opportunities that can dictate terms for the effective re-design of Canada's health system. Independent (home) dialysis is associated with cost savings and improved quality of life in comparison with hospital-based hemodialysis treatment. Despite this, independent dialysis has failed to increase at the same rate as hospital-based treatment for chronic kidney disease. One probable reason is the lack of healthcare providers to truly understand the patient experience of living with chronic kidney disease. Qualitative data have shown that patients living with chronic kidney disease desire independence and minimal impact to their quality of life. Parse's Humanbecoming theory has been widely accepted in nursing practice as a theoretical base in which to gain an understanding of the lived experience. The values and assumptions of the Humanbecoming theory are also congruent with patient-centered care practice and transferable to all areas of healthcare practice and disciplines.

The benefits of clinical nursing experience in nursing education cannot be overemphasized. Literature has shown that proficient clinical nursing education enhances nursing practice through the development of professional growth with opportunities for the application of theoretical knowledge. Clinical preceptorship has been shown to be an effective method in the development of professional nurses through clinical education. The role of a clinical nursing preceptor is complex and not necessarily applicable to all nurses. Understanding the clinical environment, comprehending individual learning styles, and dealing effectively with conflict are skills that an effective preceptor needs to acquire before participating in the role. This article describes the origin of the preceptor role in clinical nursing education and discusses how the role can be enhanced through a proficient and well-planned preceptorship education program.

The Electronic Warfare Engagement Simulation Facility (EWESF) is a research facility used at the Defence Research Establishment Ottawa (DREO) to assess the performance of electronic warfare systems. The facility is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of radar jamming hardware and jamming techniques using a hardware-in-the-loop configuration. Actual radar jamming equipment is interfaced to the facility and is stimulated by radar signals from a victim radar. The jammer response to the threat radar signal is radiated into the EWESF anechoic chamber to degrade the performance of the radar. The radar performance can be monitored and the jamming techniques can be modified until a technique design is obtained which maximizes the radar degradation. This paper describes the basic design and operation of the EWESF. >

Epidemiologic studies conducted at hazardous waste sites present a number of methodologic difficulties in addition to those generally associated with observational studies in human populations (Marsh and Caplan, 1987). First, the populations studied are relatively small, making the identification of rare outcomes, such as cancer, difficult. Second, the latent period required for many clinical outcomes to be expressed may be long and the duration of residence for many members of the population inadequate for disease expression. Migration into and out of the study area may make precise ascertainment of duration of exposure difficult. Third, there may be a lack of specificity for many potential outcomes. Fourth, confounding bias exerted by other exposures (e.g., smoking, alcohol consumption, occupational exposures to chemicals) may make it difficult to determine whether associations detected are related to exposure to the waste site.

The attached data and plots summarize Fenton Hill LTFT reservoir operating conditions from May 5, 1992 to the present. Interpretation of the data is open for discussion, so the data is simply presented without theorization. The attached reservoir data are listed in tabular form showing both dates and the number of days since May 5th so the tabular data can be referenced to the plots which follow. The plots show only the steady reservoir operation with a 1400 psi production wellhead pressure. That is, the data resulting from system shut-ins and backpressures other than 1400 psi are now shown in the plots.

Twenty-one patients were entered into a phase I trial to evaluate toxicity, antitumor effects, and biological responses at tumor sites during treatment of R24, an immunoglobulin G3 (IgG3) mouse monoclonal antibody (mAb) against GD3 ganglioside. Toxicity was related to dose of R24. Urticaria and pruritus were the most prominent side effects, with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea occurring at the highest dose levels. Partial responses were observed in four patients lasting from 6 to 46 weeks, and mixed responses were seen in two patients. Responses occurred as early as 4 weeks and as late as 10 weeks after beginning treatment. Twenty of the 21 patients developed human IgG antibodies against R24. Antimouse Ig antibodies were first detected at a median of 14 days after starting treatment, but three of the four patients who had a partial response developed the antimouse Ig responses later than 20 days. Peak serum levels of R24 were related to dose and ranged from a mean of 0.9 micrograms/mL at the lowest dose level (1 mg/m2/d) to 44 micrograms/mL at the highest dose (50 mg/m2/d). The amount of R24 reaching tumor sites corresponded to the dose administered, and R24 could be detected in tumors as late as 30 days after finishing treatment. Inflammation at tumor sites was observed during treatment. Biopsies of tumors taken before, during, and after treatment revealed that R24 induced deposition of complement components, increased numbers of mast cells with mast cell degranulation, and infiltration of T lymphocytes. These results suggest that treatment with R24 can produce a localized inflammatory response at tumor sites that is capable of producing tumor regression.

In this paper, the authors present a new approach based on scattering parameters matrix for the analysis of power line communication (PLC) signals in low voltage (LV) networks. The frequency spectrum associated with PLC signals extends from 1 MHz to 30 MHz. The low voltage network consists of multiconductor overhead lines and/or underground multiconductor cables. Dielectric and ohmic losses due to the presence of the ground are taken into account, and both differential- and common-mode propagations are studied. In the proposed formalism, the intrinsic properties of the transmission medium are fully described by the associated scattering parameters matrix. Hence, PLC signals along an entire LV network can be predicted by cascading the scattering parameters matrices associated with each line or cable. A computer code with a user-friendly graphical interface is developed which allows numerical simulation of PLC signals in LV networks. The simulation results are compared with measurements carried out on Swiss and French LV networks and a reasonable agreement is found.