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In rural Canada the issue of school closures and consolidations due to low enrollment and heightened fiscal constraints has become a contentious and highly charged issue for citizens and communities. This literature review synthesizes the major effects of school closure on rural communities, identifying economic impacts, social impacts, and implications for students. The historical context of Canadian rural schools, notions of rurality, urbanormativity and local complexity, along with considerations of urban-centred educational policy, are overarching themes identified in the rural school literature. These concepts were found to subsequently perpetuate the economic, social, and student-centred impacts reported. A relative dearth of research focusing on the community-level impacts of rural school closure, particularly in the Canadian context, supports the need for further in-depth studies that address gaps in the literature. These findings could in turn be used in the development of future educational policy which acknowledges rurality for rural Canadian communities.

Attributional (explanatory) thinking involves the appraisal of factors that contribute to performance and is instrumental to motivation and goal striving. Little is understood, however, concerning attributional thinking when multiple causes are involved in the transition to new achievement settings. Our study examined such complex attributional thinking in the transition from high school to university, a shift from familiar to novel learning environments, in the context of Weiner's attribution theory (1972, 1985, 1995, 2006). At the start of the academic year, students rated the extent to which each of six common attributions contributed to poor performance to ascertain their relative importance to each other. A fixed order of attributions was reported as contributing to poor performance that was identical across five independent cohorts of first-year students (effort, test difficulty, strategy, professor quality, ability, luck, respectively). Cluster analysis revealed that students differed in combining these attributions into clusters suggesting diminished or enhanced control over poor performance. These differences in attribution clusters were associated with cognitive and affective outcomes at the start of Term 1, and with course grades and GPA at the end of Term 2. Student differences in complex attributional thinking are discussed in terms of transitions to new achievement settings. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)

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The United States identifies a far larger percentage of students for special-education services than do other developed countries, including Israel, Canada, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, and Korea. Looming behind the U.S. figures are the possibility of lawsuits, mounting paperwork, student discipline problems, lower expectations for student effort, and teacher shortages. (MLH)

Now that school boards have been replaced by parent advisory councils, there is virtually no local school governance in New Brunswick, Canada. Factors leading to school boards' demise include neglected democratic institutions, failure to understand local boards' needs, less qualified members, boards' failure to protect their special responsibilities, emphasis on trivia over substance, budgetary difficulties, and a changing social agenda. (MLH)

Introduction: Metrics utilized within the Medical Science Liaison (MSL) role are plentiful and traditionally quantitative. We sought to understand the current use and value of metrics applied to the MSL role, including the use of qualitative metrics. Methods: We developed a list of 70 MSL leaders working in Canada, spanning 29 companies. Invitations were emailed Jun 16, 2020 and the 25-question online survey was open for 3 weeks. Questions were designed to assess demographics as well as how and why metrics are applied to the MSL role. Data analyses were descriptive. Results: Responses were received from 44 leaders (63%). Of the 42 eligible, 45% had ≤ 2 years of experience as MSL leaders and 86% supported specialty care products over many phases of the product lifecycle. A majority (69%) agreed or strongly agreed that metrics are critical to understanding whether an MSL is delivering value, and 98% had used metrics in the past year. The most common reason to use metrics was 'to show value/impact of MSLs to leadership' (66%). The most frequently used metric was 'number of health-care professional (HCP) interactions', despite this being seen as having moderate value. Quantitative metrics were used more often than qualitative, although qualitative were more often highly valued. Conclusion: The data collected show a lack of agreement between the frequency of use for some metrics and their value in demonstrating the contribution of an MSL. Overall, MSL leaders in our study felt qualitative metrics were a better means of showing the true impact of MSLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of nest site selection to determine the breeding survival of Pacific and Yellow-billed loons which dwell sympatrically in Arctic regions. Study results using logistic regression analysis show that both species select breeding sites, such as lakes with small islands, to minimize the risk of predation and exposure to strong waves and ice patterns. The study recommends that land managers focus on lake sheltered areas to protect the nests from potential hazards.

Abstract: Although severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is not a proven foodborne pathogen, the COVID-19 pandemic has put the food system on alert, and food safety has been identified as an important pillar in mitigating the crisis. Therefore, an understanding of how popular media are used as a vital disseminator of food safety and health information for the public is more important than ever. YouTube deserves particular attention as one of the most highly trafficked Web sites on the Internet, especially because YouTube has been blamed during the pandemic for spreading misleading or untrustworthy information that contradicts validated information. This study was conducted to evaluate the food safety information and practices circulating on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic and the alignment of these practices with recommendations from government agencies. A search for videos on YouTube was conducted using the key words "food and COVID-19," "food safety and COVID-19," and "groceries and COVID-19." After applying a series of inclusive and exclusive criteria, 85 videos from the United States and Canada were evaluated. More than half (69%) of the videos presented hand washing procedures, 26% showed kitchen disinfection, and most (86%) showed take-out food or grocery store practices. Multiple produce washing procedures were also shown throughout videos. Food was not considered hazardous in 39% of the videos, but 24% mentioned that food packaging is potentially hazardous. Most videos cited government agencies and had a host or guest who was a health care professional, professor, or expert. Three videos were not aligned with a government agency's guideline or information cited; two were presented by a health care professional. These findings reveal the need to develop educational interventions that increase YouTube video host and guest awareness of social media use as a tool for food safety dissemination and the need to provide trustworthy information., (Copyright ©, International Association for Food Protection.)