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Hicks, Alex, and Anne Hicks. "105 Actually, it is easy being green: Ten years of the Canadian PAediatric Society Annual General Meeting viewed through a sustainability lens." Paediatrics & Child Health 25, Supplement_2 (August 2020): e43-e44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxaa068.104.
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Abstract Introduction/Background The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) recently released the “Global climate change and health of Canadian Children” statement. As climate rapidly evolves from “change” to “crisis” there is an increasing pressure toward sustainable conferencing. Knowing the value of attending meetings, the growing body of literature evaluating travel-related carbon cost and convention sustainability can inform environmental harm minimization. Conferences can pressure venues to increase sustainability by choosing sites and venues wisely and communicating their requirements to rejected venues. They can also offer carbon offset purchase through credible companies (e.g. Gold Standard). Over the last 10 years the CPS has conducted its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at host cities that reflect Canada’s large geographic footprint. Venues included both hotel and standalone conference centers. There is no published evaluation of sustainable practices for CPS meetings. Objectives Evaluate the past 10 CPS Annual General Meetings (AGMs) for: Design/Methods Travel-related carbon cost was estimated with a round-trip calculator for economy seating the most direct available flights (https://co2.myclimate.org/en/offset_further_emissions). Cities of origin for attendee were the 11 CaRMS-matched pediatric residency training programs (https://www.carms.ca/match/psm/program-descriptions/). Venues were evaluated based on current publicly available self-reported information using conference sustainability criteria suggested through a literature review and public rating tools (Green Key, Quality Standards of the International Association of Convention Centres). Ground transportation from the airport was scored /3 by: public transport from airport (1), formal shared transport (1), fee deterrence for parking (1). Venue type was split by hotel-associated (H) and standalone convention centre (CC) meeting facilities. Sustainability of meeting facilities was divided into supports /2 (rentable supports, links to local vendors, catering and personnel) for exhibitors (1) and event planners (1), policies /3 by: sustainability, promotion of a green community (1), and waste management (1), and walkability from accommodation /1. Results The last 10 CPS AGMs were held in western (3; Vancouver 2010, Edmonton 2013, Vancouver 2017), eastern (1; Charlottetown 2016) and central (6; Quebec City 2011, London 2012, Montreal 2014, Toronto 2015, Quebec City 2018, Toronto 2019) provinces; in 2020 it is in Vancouver. Central Canada sites had the lowest air travel carbon cost per attendee. Average air travel-related carbon cost per attendee for different host cities ranged from 0.479 (London) to 0.919 (Vancouver) tonnes, with Ontario and Quebec sites averaging 0.518, Charlottetown 0.654 and Edmonton 0.756 tonnes. Ground transportation scores differed by city from Montreal (3/3 with public transit, formal transportation share and parking fees to dissuade driving) to London (0/3), with more favorable public transit options in larger cities. Venues differed when divided by hotel with meeting facilities (H) vs standalone conference center (CC), with CC outranking H for clearly posted sustainability plans (1.6 vs 1.2/2; 2=venue-specific, 1=company chain policy, 0=no plan), green and sustainable community building plans (1.6 vs 1.2/2; 2=greening local communities, 1=company chain policy, 0=no plan) and green waste management policies (1.2 vs 0/2; 2=venue-specific, 1=company chain policy, 0=no plan). Walkable accommodation was equal and present for all venues, with attached accommodation for all but one CC (Montreal), which had immediately adjacent hotels available. Conclusion As expected, the carbon cost of air transportation per attendee was lower in central provinces. Ground transportation from the airport was better in larger host cities. Standalone conference centres had more sustainable event support and locally focused policies regarding sustainability, environmentally friendly community building initiatives and waste management solutions, three major components of “greening” conferences. Based on the available resources across Canada, we recommend that the CPS considers these sustainability criteria in planning future events.
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Shahla, Farhad, Amer S. Shalaby, Bhagwant N. Persaud, and Alireza Hadayeghi. "Analysis of Transit Safety at Signalized Intersections in Toronto, Ontario, Canada." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2102, no. 1 (January 2009): 108–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2102-14.
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Baqi, Mahin, Ken Gamble, Jay S. Keystone, and Kevin C. Kain. "Malaria: Probably Locally Acquired in Toronto, Ontario." Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases 9, no. 3 (1998): 183–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/1998/150650.
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Although local acquisition of malaria has been reported in the United States, no such cases have been reported in Canada. The authors report a case ofPlasmodium vivaxmalaria in a patient with no travel to a malarious area in the preceding nine years, and postulate local acquisition as the most likely explanation for her infection. The only other plausible alternative explanation of equal biological interest would be that this case represents the latest relapse of vivax malaria ever reported.
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Splettstoesser, John, and Beezie Drake Splettstoesser. "The first transit of the Northwest Passage by Russian icebreaker." Polar Record 29, no. 169 (April 1993): 148. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400023615.
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In a voyage beginning 24 July in Ulsan, South Korea, and ending i n St Petersburg, Russia, on 21 September 1992, the icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov successfully completed an unassisted transit of the Northwest Passage, from Bering Strait to the North Atlantic Ocean. The ship was chartered jointly by Polar Schiffahrts-Consulting, Hamburg, Germany; Blyth and Company Travel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and D.G. Wells Marine Ltd, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was marketed for tourists, some of whom traveled the entire distance of 14,120 nautical miles [26,150 km]. Khlebnikov was the fifty-third vessel to complete the Northwest Passage since Roald Amundsen first accomplished it in 1906 (Pullen and Swithinbank 1991, and confirmed by the office of Coast Guard Northern, Ottawa, Canada).
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Huang, Stephen Q., Amer Shalaby, and Rajnath Bissessar. "Impacts of Transit Priority on Signal Coordination: Case Study of Toronto, Ontario, Canada." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2311, no. 1 (January 2012): 29–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2311-03.
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Soberman, Richard M. "Rethinking Urban Transportation: Lessons from Toronto." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1606, no. 1 (January 1997): 33–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/1606-05.
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Toronto is widely perceived to have developed efficient solutions to transportation during periods of rapid population growth, attributed largely to significant investment in public transit and effective means of managing growth in an orderly manner. Relative to comparably sized cities elsewhere in North America, the downtown has flourished and urban sprawl appears to have been contained within reasonable limits. Yet, despite a high degree of centralized planning and policies that favor transit over road improvements, on a regionwide basis, both modal split and transit ridership have actually declined, road congestion has reached serious levels in outlying regions, and the central area is losing its dominance as the location of new employment creation. This experience suggests a need to rethink the advisability of continued preoccupation with rail-dominated (subway, light rail transit, and high-technology transit), centrally oriented, capital-intensive transit improvements at the expense of lower-cost (and lower political profile) operational enhancements of surface transit, more effective means of dealing with road congestion, and greater reliance on business principles in the provision of transit service. In particular, there is a need to rethink government policies that favor capital over operational improvements, cost-based subsidy formulae that reward high costs rather than performance, intergovernmental transfers that obfuscate real costs perceived at the local decision-making level, and evaluation procedures that rely on alleged social and environmental advantages wherever reasonable ridership estimates fail to justify the selection of a preconceived preferred technology in assessing the true viability of new projects.
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Nagorsky, Becca, Kaya Sabag, Don Emerson, and Stephen Hewitt. "Moving Beyond Evaluation to Transit Project Prioritization: Lessons from the Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Context." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2568, no. 1 (January 2016): 64–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2568-10.
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Halfon, Efraim, and Don Poulton. "Distribution of Chlorobenzenes, Pesticides and PCB Congeners in Lake Ontario Near the Toronto Waterfront." Water Quality Research Journal 27, no. 4 (November 1, 1992): 751–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wqrj.1992.046.
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Abstract Concentrations of 89 toxic organic pollutants (25 contaminants, including chlorobenzenes and pesticides, and 64 PCB isomers) were measured in Lake Ontario along the Toronto Waterfront area during the spring, summer and fall of 1987. Data indicate that Humber Bay, the inner harbour, and the areas near the Toronto Main Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) are the most polluted. While contaminant levels in some offshore areas are high, average levels for most contaminants are similar to whole-lake levels. Lake Ontario receives large amounts of pollutants from atmospheric sources and the Niagara River. Consequently, the impact of both local and whole-lake sources is felt in the Toronto Waterfront Area. Thus, even if all local sources of pollution were removed, the Toronto Waterfront Area would probably remain affected by other sources, primarily the Niagara River. Concentrations of toxic pollutants would remain approximately the same as far as two kilometers from shore.
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Palm, Matthew, Amer Shalaby, and Steven Farber. "Social Equity and Bus On-Time Performance in Canada’s Largest City." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2674, no. 11 (August 27, 2020): 329–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361198120944923.
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Bus routes provide critical lifelines to disadvantaged travelers in major cities. Bus route performance is also more variable than the performance of other, grade-separated transit modes. Yet the social equity of bus operational performance is largely unexamined outside of limited statutory applications. Equity assessment methods for transit operations are similarly underdeveloped relative to equity analysis methods deployed in transit planning. This study examines the equity of bus on-time performance (OTP) in Toronto, Ontario, the largest city in Canada. Both census proximity and ridership profile approaches to defining equity routes are deployed, modifying United States Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) Title VI methods to fit a Canadian context. Bus OTP in Toronto is found to be horizontally equitable. It is also found that the U.S. DOT approach of averaging performance between equity and non-equity routes masks the existence of underperforming routes with very significant ridership of color. These routes are overwhelmingly night routes, most of which are only classified as equity routes using a ridership definition. These results suggest that the underperformance of Toronto’s “Blue Night” network of overnight buses is a social equity issue. This OTP data is also applied to a household travel survey to identify disparities in the OTP of bus transit as experienced by different demographic groups throughout the city. It is found that recent immigrants and carless households, both heavily transit dependent populations in the Canadian context, experience lower on-time bus performance than other groups.
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Halfon, Efraim. "Impact on the Fate of Toxic Contaminants in the Toronto Waterfront — Should the Toronto Main Sewage Treatment Plant Outfall Be Moved Farther Offshore?" Water Quality Research Journal 36, no. 1 (February 1, 2001): 21–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wqrj.2001.002.
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Abstract A fate model, TOXFATE, is coupled with a hydrodynamic model of the waters off the Toronto waterfront, Lake Ontario. The Toronto waterfront is here defined as a rectangular area, 48 km long by 10 km wide, of the lake delimited on the west by Etobicoke Creek and in the east by the Rouge River. Data were collected in 1987 in support of the Toronto Main Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) pilot site study, Municipal and Industrial Study for Abatement (MISA). It provides an excellent baseline database. The object of the fate-modeling study is to assess the change in organics concentration if loadings from the Main STP and other local sources were changed or the outfall location moved farther offshore. Loadings of contaminants from local sources in the Toronto waterfront area are between 0.5% to 25% of contaminants that enter Lake Ontario from other sources. Results show that if sources of local loadings were reduced, changes in water concentrations would be noticeable within 1 to 2 kilometres from shore. Only a small area of the waterfront is affected directly by local sources since waters in the Toronto waterfront area are replaced approximately every 9 days (as computed from the hydrodynamic simulation). Therefore, toxic contaminants that enter from local sources are readily dispersed in the rest of the lake. Simulations also show that the extension of the Toronto Main STP outfall to a new location farther offshore will result in a dilution of toxic contaminants 10 times greater than that obtained at the present STP outfall. A complete set of figures, including an interactive analysis of the computer simulations, is available on the Web site www.butx.com/toronto.
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Hu, Wen Xun, and Amer Shalaby. "Use of Automated Vehicle Location Data for Route- and Segment-Level Analyses of Bus Route Reliability and Speed." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2649, no. 1 (January 2017): 9–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2649-02.
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Reliability and speed are arguably the most important indicators of surface transit performance for both operators and passengers. They can be influenced by a variety of factors, including service characteristics of bus routes, physical infrastructure, signal settings, traffic conditions and ridership patterns. These factors have often been analyzed individually for their impact on transit reliability or speed. Studies considering more than one factor tend to use one or two transit routes to explore their effects. The study that is the subject of this paper proposed an evaluation framework to guide the selection of an appropriate reliability measure. Regression analysis was applied subsequently to determine the factors that exhibit a statistically significant relationship with transit reliability and speed at both the route and segment levels. Automated vehicle location data of a bus route sample that is representative of the entire bus network in the City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada were used. Features significantly associated with reliability and speed were compared. The results showed that lower transit reliability and speed are significantly associated with the increase in service distance, signalized intersection density, stop density, volume of boarding and alighting passengers, and traffic volume. By segregating bus route segments on the basis of the presence of transit signal priority, the results of the segment-level model demonstrated the beneficial impact of transit signal priority on improving transit reliability.
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Warecki, George. "The Making of a Conservationist." Ontario History 108, no. 1 (July 24, 2018): 64–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1050612ar.
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Published accounts of the work of J.R. Dymond, a zoology professor at the University of Toronto, director of the Royal Ontario Museum, and a significant force for conservation in Ontario emphasize his contributions to the natural history movement, and his influence on scientific research and the protection of natural areas in provincial parks. Relatively little attention has been paid to his early life and the local environments that shaped his views of nature. This article uses the concept of “place” to explain how Dymond became a conservationist. His experiences in specific locations—a product of social relations and the landscapes themselves—gave those places meaning and shaped his values. Such environments included the family farm and surrounding countryside in southwestern Ontario’s Metcalfe Township, Strathroy Collegiate Institute, the University of Toronto and nearby natural areas, places in Ottawa, and various lakes in B.C. and Ontario.
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Kulisek, Larry, and Trevor Price. "Ontario Municipal Policy Affecting Local Autonomy: A Case Study Involving Windsor and Toronto." Articles 16, no. 3 (August 7, 2013): 255–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1017734ar.
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During the first great burst of urban growth in Canada from the beginning of the 20th century and on into the 1920s it was generally the municipalities, either singly or collectively, which fostered policy innovation and new services. Provinces generally did little at that time, either to foster new policies or rein in local autonomy. It was only after the economic setbacks of the depression and a renewed spirit of urban development after 1945 that provincial direction over municipalities became much more significant. This paper is a case study of two major policy crises which threatened the viability of the whole municipal system in Ontario. In the 1930s the Border Cities (Metropolitan Windsor) faced bankruptcy and economic collapse and placed in jeopardy the credit of the province. In the early 1950s the inability of Metropolitan Toronto to create area-wide solutions to severe servicing problems threatened to stall the main engine of provincial growth. The case study demonstrates how a reluctant provincial government intervened to create new metropolitan arrangements for the two areas and accompanied this with a greatly expanded structure of provincial oversight including a strengthened Ontario Municipal Board and a specific department to handle municipal affairs. The objective of the policy was to bolster local government rather than to narrow municipal autonomy.
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Seneviratne, Ayesh K., Siraj K. Zahr, Sara Mirali, Sachin Doshi, Tina Binesh Marvasti, Robert Civitarese, and Norman D. Rosenblum. "Addressing the need for a new generation of young translational researchers that focuses on societal impact: The Apollo Toronto Story." Clinical and Investigative Medicine 42, no. 3 (September 29, 2019): E14—E16. http://dx.doi.org/10.25011/cim.v42i3.33088.
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Translational research (TR) is a multidirectional and multidisciplinary integration of basic research, patient-oriented research and population-based research, with the long-term goal of improving human health. Unfortunately, the current scientific training system does not adequately align with the goals of TR. To address this issue, an organization called Apollo Toronto was established at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario. Apollo Toronto is a medical student-run international collaborative project between the Eureka Institute for Translational Medicine and the University of Toronto (one of Eureka Institute’s partner universities), and provides a general overview of TR to interested medical and graduate students. Through local and international initiatives, the various Apollo chapters (including Apollo Toronto) aim to establish a network of trainees equipped to address systemic issues that impede the translation of an ever-growing body of scientific literature into health solutions.
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Chin, Anchor, Andy Lai, and Joseph Y. J. Chow. "Nonadditive Public Transit Fare Pricing Under Congestion with Policy Lessons from a Case Study in Toronto, Ontario, Canada." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2544, no. 1 (January 2016): 28–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2544-04.
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Casello, Jeffrey M., and Pedram Fard. "Automated Tool for Geographic Information Systems That Supports Transit Network Design by Identifying Urban Activity Centers." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2651, no. 1 (January 2017): 12–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2651-02.
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Public transit is central to sustainable multimodal transportation systems; however, designing an effective transit network remains an analytically challenging and complex task. Given the spatial nature of the problem, geographic information systems (GISs) can support transit network design by identifying subsections of urban areas within and between which very high travel demand exists. Once these corridors are identified, local knowledge and expertise may be used to develop routings that satisfy these demands. This paper presents a spatial approach to assist in designing transit networks and describes the development and application of an automated, spatial multicriteria aggregation algorithm implemented as a user-friendly GIS tool coded by using the Python scripting library (ArcPy). Using population and employment densities, spatial adjacency, and geographic and administrative boundaries, the GIS tool leverages readily available demographic data to classify and merge traffic analysis zones into larger urban activity centers. The tool then aggregates regional origin–destination matrices to visualize only the flows associated with the activity centers. The results show that this approach significantly reduces the number of origins and destinations to be considered in designing the network but retains a large proportion of regional trips. This paper demonstrates how the tool can be applied through an example from the region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where the local transit agency is developing a transit network to support a central light-rail transit line.
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Weninger, J. M., and J. H. McAndrews. "Late Holocene aggradation in the lower Humber River valley, Toronto, Ontario." Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 26, no. 9 (September 1, 1989): 1842–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e89-157.
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Alluvial fills are common in the lower reaches of rivers along the western shore of Lake Ontario. The Humber River floodplain at Toronto is underlain by a 2.5 km long wedge of alluvium that thins upstream from Lake Ontario. Floodplain sediments were studied for their lithology, 14C age, and fossil pollen. On the levees, grey clay is overlain by oxidized silt and sand. Sediment cores from two flood ponds grade upward from gravel, sand, and silt, to silty marl, mineral peat, and clay, to heterogeneous silt and sand. Base-level (Lake Ontario) rise directly controlled aggradation between 6500 and 1800 years ago, after which time base level no longer directly controlled aggradation because levees had emerged alongside the channel and reduced the supply of sediment to the floodplain. For the past 150 years, upstream forest clearance and urbanization increased sediment input to the floodplain, broadened the levees, and filled the flood ponds.Average flood-pond aggradation rates were estimated from seven 14C dates; these rates declined from 65 cm/100 years between 6500 and 3800 years ago, to 47 cm/100 years between 3800 and 3400 years ago, to 26 cm/100 years between 3400 and 1800 years ago. These rates reflect contemporaneous lake-level rise. Between 1800 and 150 years ago, the average aggradation rate declined below the estimated rate of lake-level rise to 14 cm/100 years. Since then, the average aggradation rate has increased tenfold to 140 cm/100 years, surpassing the historic rate of lake-level rise of 23 cm/100 years. Fossil pollen from the flood ponds reflects local flood plain and regional upland vegetation during the past 4000 years.
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Yang, Seungho, Afnan Ahmad, Peter Y. Park, Gunho Sohn, and Jeremy Krygsman. "Public Transit Service Reliability Assessment using Two-Fluid Model." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2674, no. 4 (March 18, 2020): 89–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361198119896783.
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This study introduces a traffic flow theory-based reliability indicator to evaluate the inter-city public transit service. The two-fluid theory parameter n that measures the road networks’ resilience to changing traffic is used as a new reliability indicator of public bus service. We compared the performance of the new indicator with the three existing reliability indicators, including on-time performance, with a total of 52 different GO Bus routes to ascertain the usability of the new indicator. The GO Bus service is an inter-city bus service operated by Metrolinx in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas in Ontario, Canada. We used 1 month of GO Bus GPS data collected in July 2017 to estimate various public transit reliability indictors. We also investigated the relationship between reliability indicators and selected roadway network characteristics, such as route length, freeway ratio, intersection density along a route, and so forth. The study applied a series of statistical analyses, including principal component analysis, correlation analysis, and z-test using Fisher’s z transformation. The results showed that the proposed two-fluid indicator n can be used as a supplementary reliability indicator for assessing road networks’ resilience in regards to changing traffic flow conditions. The new indicator provided additional insights for inter-city bus service operators for initiating communication with roadway governing agencies for the purpose of improving road networks to further improve public transit service reliability.
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Carlson, Jules, William A. Gough, Jim D. Karagatzides, and Leonard J. S. Tsuji. "Canopy Interception of Acid Deposition in Southern Ontario." Canadian Field-Naturalist 117, no. 4 (October 1, 2003): 523. http://dx.doi.org/10.22621/cfn.v117i4.799.
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The impact of tree canopies on acid deposition was examined. Differences in the chemical composition of unintercepted precipitation (dustfall) and canopy was intercepted precipitation (throughfall) at 18 southern Ontario forests, collected during the summers of 1995-1996, were chemically analyzed. The methodology of collection and analysis validated using consistency checks for interception loss, maintenance of electrical neutrality and ion correlation. T-test analyses found throughfall fluxes of K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, and NO3- were significantly higher than dustfall flux (p < 0.05), consistent with other studies. Barrie and nearby sites at Orillia and Bracebridge had larger dustfall depositions of base cations and Cl- suggesting a nearby source of these ions. T-tests revealed large exceedances of pH and sulphate concentration in dustfall over throughfall at the two Scarborough sites; a local point source of sulphates in the Greater Toronto Area was suspected.
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Roche-Nagle, G., K. Bachynski, A. B. Nathens, D. Angoulvant, and B. B. Rubin. "Regionalization of services improves access to emergency vascular surgical care." Vascular 21, no. 2 (March 18, 2013): 69–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1708538113478726.
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Management of vascular surgical emergencies requires rapid access to a vascular surgeon and hospital with the infrastructure necessary to manage vascular emergencies. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of regionalization of vascular surgery services in Toronto to University Health Network (UHN) and St Michael's Hospital (SMH) on the ability of CritiCall Ontario to transfer patients with life- and limb-threatening vascular emergencies for definitive care. A retrospective review of the CritiCall Ontario database was used to assess the outcome of all calls to CritiCall regarding patients with vascular disease from April 2003 to March 2010. The number of patients with vascular emergencies referred via CritiCall and accepted in transfer by the vascular centers at UHN or SMH increased 500% between 1 April 2003-31 December 2005 and 1 January 2006-31 March 2010. Together, the vascular centers at UHN and SMH accepted 94.8% of the 1002 vascular surgery patients referred via CritiCall from other hospitals between 1 January 2006 and 31 March 2010, and 72% of these patients originated in hospitals outside of the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network. Across Ontario, the number of physicians contacted before a patient was accepted in transfer fell from 2.9 ± 0.4 before to 1.7 ± 0.3 after the vascular centers opened. In conclusion, the vascular surgery centers at UHN and SMH have become provincial resources that enable the efficient transfer of patients with vascular surgical emergencies from across Ontario. Regionalization of services is a viable model to increase access to emergent care.
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Zink, Regan. "Review of Eat local, taste global: how ethnocultural food reaches our tables." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation 9, no. 2 (July 15, 2022): 299–301. http://dx.doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v9i2.590.
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Eat Local, Taste Global: How Ethnocultural Food Reaches our Tables, by Glen C. Filson and Bamidele Adekunle, addresses the demand, availability, and production of ethnocultural vegetables in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). The book is centered around the three largest ethnic groups in the GTHA (Chinese, South Asian, Afro-Caribbean) and considers histories of immigration, acculturation, and the availability of ethnocultural food. Taken as a whole, this book provides an overview and justification for the local production of ethnocultural vegetables. While this book is primarily based in the Southern Ontario context, there is some discussion of ethnocultural vegetable value chains in other parts of Canada and the USA. Further, Filson and Adekunle distinguish between the corporate food regime, characterized by longer value chains, and local and community level food sovereignty which are primarily discussed through farmers’ markets, community shared agriculture, and gardening. The authors cite numerous benefits of producing ethnocultural vegetables in Southern Ontario, including economic, health, social, and environmental benefits. Ethnocultural vegetables are not only fresher and more nutritious when produced locally, but there is also increased opportunity for producer-consumer contact and less food miles associated with local production.
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Sumner, Jennifer, and Hayley Lapalme. "The public plate in the transnational city: Tensions among food procurement, global trade and local legislation." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation 6, no. 1 (January 12, 2019): 22–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.268.
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Local food systems are crucial to sustainability, and one of the most effective ways to develop them is to harness the buying power of large public institutions, such as hospitals and universities. Steering public funds toward local food systems, however, is not as easy as it might appear. Institutions must navigate a maze of regulations that can become significant barriers to effecting change. In Ontario, for example, public institutions are squeezed between two contradictory policies: the Broader Public Sector Directive, which mandates a level playing field and prohibits preferential buying based on geography, and the Local Food Act, which aims to increase the consumption of local food (with a specific focus on procurement in Ontario public institutions) and to foster successful and resilient local food economies and systems. Adding to this tension, global trade treaties are drilling down to the local level, proscribing preferential procurement of local food as “protectionist” and a barrier to trade.
Public institutions are caught in the middle, wanting to purchase more local products but unwilling to risk reprisals. This paper investigates these tensions by reporting on a recent study of institutional buyers and government officials in the Toronto area to understand more thoroughly these barriers to operationalizing a local food system, while recognizing that sustainable food systems require a judicious combination of ‘local and green’ and ‘global and fair’ (Morgan 2008).
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Macdonald, Noni E., Beth Halperin, Enrique Beldarrain Chaple, Jeff Scott, and John M. Kirk. "Infectious Disease Management: Lessons from Cuba." Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology 17, no. 4 (2006): 217–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2006/351919.
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Over the past decade in Canada, infectious disease outbreaks have repeatedly been in the public spotlight. TheEscherichia colioutbreak in Walkerton, Ontario (1), the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Toronto, Ontario (2) and theClostridium difficilehospital outbreak in Montreal, Quebec (3), have cost lives, grabbed headlines and stressed local health care systems. Each outbreak raised questions about our ability to prevent outbreaks, detect outbreaks early, and respond efficiently and effectively to infectious disease crises; these outbreaks also highlighted gaps in Canada's preparedness for managing major infectious disease problems when multiple jurisdictions are involved (4). Canada's poor track record of tuberculosis control in the north (5) raises the concern that this problem is not limited to crisis situations, but rather has deeper implications for the management of infectious diseases in Canada.
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De Pencier, North, Ian Puppe, Carrie Davis, Drishti Dhawan, Mithila Somasundaram, and Gerald McKinley. "“You feel you don’t actually belong:” Attending High School in the Sioux Lookout Zone, 1969-1996." University of Western Ontario Medical Journal 87, no. 2 (March 12, 2019): 6–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.5206/uwomj.v87i2.1116.
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From 1969-1996, in the Sioux Lookout Zone of Northwestern Ontario, there were no local high schools, and teenagers travelled to boarding schools in larger communities further south. During these years, the University of Toronto coordinated medical services in the Sioux Lookout Zone, and many documents in the University of Toronto Archives capture the challenges faced by adolescents from the Zone while pursuing a high school education. In this paper, I use Indigenous voices in the records of the Sioux Lookout Zone Hospital to study the experience of going to high school from the perspective of the Social Determinants of Health. I argue that the poor quality of on-reserve elementary schools and the isolation of leaving home for high school combined with less time to learn traditional skills to set students up for failure in their academic studies.
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Gough, William A., and Vidya Anderson. "Changing Air Quality and the Ozone Weekend Effect during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada." Climate 10, no. 3 (March 15, 2022): 41. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli10030041.
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Air pollutants, NO, NO2, and O3, were examined from April to June 2020 and compared to a 10-year (2010–2019) climatology of these pollutants for two monitoring sites in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, coinciding with local lockdown measures during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. NO and NO2 values were lower than any of the preceding 10 years at the two Toronto sites for both weekdays and weekends. Ozone concentrations did not have a corresponding decrease and in fact increased for weekdays, similar to other parts of the world. The well-documented ozone weekend effect was considerably muted during the morning rush hour throughout this pandemic period. A Fisher exact test on hourly averaged data revealed statistically significant record hourly minimums for NO and NO2, but this was not found for ozone, consistent with the aggregate ranking results. These findings are likely the result of considerably reduced vehicular traffic during this time and ozone chemistry in a NOx-saturated (VOC limited) environment. This has important implications for ozone abatement strategies.
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Mohajer, Arsalan A. "Seismicity and Seismotectonics of the Western Lake Ontario Region." Géographie physique et Quaternaire 47, no. 3 (November 23, 2007): 353–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/032963ar.
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ABSTRACTThe western Lake Ontario region, a traditionally perceived area of low seismic risk, is densely populated and is home to, among other critical facilities, the nuclear reactors of Pickering and Darlington. These and other characteristics of the region call for improved estimates of seismic hazard. Due to a lack of understanding of the causative geological sources and recurrence characteristics of the reported seismic activity, there is considerable uncertainty regarding estimated ground motion parameters, a fundamental component of seismic hazard assessments. To attempt to improve the definition of the seismic source zones and, consequently, seismic hazard assessments, the hypocentres of about 30 local earthquakes were recomputed. A new data compilation, based on the revised locations or those with the least travel-time residuals, shows that local microearthquakes (ML"3.5) generally occur along, or at the intersection of, prominent aeromagnetic or gravity anomalies. A notable seismicity trend extends in a northeast-southwest direction between Toronto and Hamilton, and is bounded by magnetic lineaments. A major geological structure, the Central Metasedimentary Belt Boundary Zone (CMBBZ), coincides with a strong aeromagnetic anomaly which extends to the northeast into the Western Québec Seismic Zone. This magnetic lineament also extends to the south, across Lake Ontario, to join the Akron (Ohio) magnetic boundary that was associated with several historical earthquakes and with a mb=4.9 earthquake in 1986. Most of the seismic events recorded instrumentally in the 20th century have occurred within a depth range of 5 to 20 km. This observation supports the correlation of local earthquakes with deep geophysical and geological features, suggesting contemporary reactivation of basement structures. This may imply that a more conservative deterministic hazard estimate is needed to verify the probabilistic approach currently used to assess seismic hazard in southern Ontario.
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Saito, Gregory, Jessica Thom, Yanliang Wei, Piraveina Gnanasuntharam, Pirasanya Gnanasuntharam, Nathan Kreiswirth, Barbara Willey, et al. "Methicillin-ResistantStaphylococcus aureusColonization among Health Care Workers in a Downtown Emergency Department in Toronto, Ontario." Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology 24, no. 3 (2013): e57-e60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/349891.
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BACKGROUND: Methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus(MRSA) acquired in the community, otherwise known as community-acquired MRSA, has emerged rapidly in recent years. Colonization with MRSA has been associated with an increased risk of symptomatic and serious infections and, in some settings, health care workers (HCWs) exhibit a higher prevalence of MRSA colonization.OBJECTIVE: To determine MRSA colonization in emergency department (ED) HCWs in the setting of a moderate prevalence of MRSA in skin and soft tissue infections.METHODS: The present study was conducted at a downtown ED in Toronto, Ontario. ED HCWs completed a brief questionnaire and swabs were taken from one anterior nare, one axilla and any open wounds (if present). Swabs were processed using standard laboratory techniques.RESULTS: None of the 89 staff (registered nurses [n=55], physicians [n=15], other [n=19]) were MRSA positive and 25 (28.1%) were colonized with methicillin-susceptibleS aureus.CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to common belief among HCWs and previous studies documenting MRSA colonization of HCWs, MRSA colonization of this particular Canadian ED HCW cohort was very low and similar to that of the local population.
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Fang, Cuilian, Cheol H. Jeong, and Greg J. Evans. "Urban Air Quality: Assessing Traffiffic and Building Architecture Impacts using Portable Measuring Devices in Toronto, Ontario." STEM Fellowship Journal 5, no. 1 (December 1, 2019): 5–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2019-004.
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Vehicle emissions are one of the largest local contributors to poor urban air quality. High emissions are often associated with traffic congestion, and pollution may also become trapped between tall buildings creating a street canyon effect. The spatial variability of traffic-related air pollutants in microenvironments should be considered in evaluating changes in urban planning. This study focuses on assessing the air quality and commuter exposure in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, specifically focusing on the effect of the King Street Pilot Project on local urban air quality by reducing traffic. Increased vehicular density is expected to contribute to higher urban pollution levels and tall buildings may trap these contaminants. Field measurements were made within the King Street Pilot area during weekday rush hours to capture the best representation of peak activity and pollutant levels when there were similar average wind speeds and directions for the sampling dates. A suite of portable devices was carried along predesigned and timed routes through traffic dense areas to measure vehicle-related air pollutants including black carbon (BC), ultrafine particles (UFP, particles smaller than 0.1 μm), and particulate matter (PM2.5, particles smaller than 2.5 μm). Data was normalized, corrected and analyzed using centralized pollutant while considering meteorological site measurements located about 1.5 km away from the study area. Results indicated higher BC and UFP levels during peak commuting times between 8 am to 10 am and relatively increased pollution levels within the area of tall buildings versus the area with shorter buildings. Strong spatial variations of BC and UFP were found, while PM2.5 levels remained relatively constant in the downtown area. Elevated levels of BC and UFP were observed around nearby construction sites. This study contributes to establishing a baseline to evaluate the King Street Pilot Project’s air quality impact as well as proposing potential methods of detailed data collection within microenvironments to observe the air quality of urban centres.
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Addo, Abena, and Marianne Hatzopoulou. "Harnessing the Potential of Automated Data to Simulate Emissions of an Interregional Bus Route in Toronto, Canada." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2627, no. 1 (January 2017): 36–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2627-05.
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This study made use of automated vehicle location and automated passenger counter data to simulate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of an interregional bus route in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The authors analyzed bus performance and emissions as well as quantified emissions under the effects of operational improvements (increasing speed and reducing idling) and different fuels (conventional diesel, compressed natural gas, and biodiesel). Average total trip emissions were 54 kg per bus, with emissions higher in the morning peak period than in the afternoon peak period. Emissions rates on the highway portion of the corridor were lower than emissions rates for the arterial portions, with mean values of 1,627 g/km and 1,993 g/km, respectively. The authors observed that the addition of each passenger influenced bus emissions per passenger differently; when the bus was less crowded, each additional passenger could decrease emissions per passenger by 7%, but that reduction becomes 1.3% when the bus is crowded. Finally, the study results estimated that operational improvements could reduce emissions by 22%, whereas switching to compressed natural gas without speed improvements could reduce emissions by 6%. The effects of emissions reduction strategies are highly dependent on the characteristics of the bus and drive cycle. These results are useful to transit planners in the selection of appropriate GHG reduction strategies as well as in the selection of candidate corridors (highway versus arterial routes) for fleet renewal.
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Auer, Martin, Cory McDonald, Anika Kuczynski, Chenfu Huang, and Pengfei Xue. "Management of the Phosphorus–Cladophora Dynamic at a Site on Lake Ontario Using a Multi-Module Bioavailable P Model." Water 13, no. 3 (January 31, 2021): 375. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w13030375.
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The filamentous green alga Cladophora grows to nuisance proportions in Lake Ontario. Stimulated by high phosphorus concentrations, nuisance growth results in the degradation of beaches and clogging of industrial water intakes with attendant loss of beneficial uses. We develop a multi-module bioavailable phosphorus model to examine the efficacy of phosphorus management strategies in mitigating nuisance algal growth. The model platform includes modules simulating hydrodynamics (FVCOM), phosphorus-phytoplankton dynamics (GEM) and Cladophora growth (GLCMv3). The model is applied along a 25 km stretch of the Lake Ontario nearshore, extending east from Toronto, ON and receiving effluent from three wastewater treatment plants. Simulation results identify the Duffin Creek wastewater treatment plant effluent as a driving force for nuisance conditions of Cladophora growth, as reflected in effluent bioavailable phosphorus concentrations and the dimensions of the plant’s phosphorus footprint. Simulation results demonstrate that phosphorus removal by chemically enhanced secondary treatment is insufficient to provide relief from nuisance conditions. Tertiary treatment (chemically enhanced secondary treatment with ballasted flocculation) is shown to eliminate phosphorus-saturated conditions associated with the Duffin Creek wastewater treatment plant effluent, providing local relief from nuisance conditions. Management guidance presented here has wider application at sites along the highly urbanized Canadian nearshore of Lake Ontario.
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Mahmoud, Mohamed S., Khandker M. Nurul Habib, and Amer Shalaby. "Survey of Cross-Regional Intermodal Passenger Travel." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2526, no. 1 (January 2015): 108–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2526-12.
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This paper presents an investigation of the mode choice behavior of cross-regional commuters in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area of Ontario, Canada. A survey of cross-regional intermodal passenger travel (called SCRIPT) was developed and conducted during the spring and the fall of 2014. SCRIPT collects data on respondents' revealed preference in daily commuting trips to pivot each respondent's mode choice stated preference experiment separately. An innovative multimodal trip planner tool was developed to generate feasible travel options for each stated preference experiment with information on household auto ownership level, proximity to transit, work start time, and total travel time from home to work, as well as predeveloped discrete choice models to identify access station locations of intermodal travel modes. The stated preference experiments were based on the D-efficient design technique. The survey used 1,203 randomly selected cross-regional commuters. The paper reports on a mode choice model estimated by the revealed preference data portion of the survey to verify the validity of the survey design, sampling procedure, and data quality. An empirical model provides insight into cross-regional commuters' mode choice behavior.
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Raby, Anne, Karen Moffat, Greg Flynn, Mark Crowther, and Adam Cuker. "Interlaboratory variation in heparin monitoring: Lessons from the Quality Management Program of Ontario coagulation surveys." Thrombosis and Haemostasis 104, no. 10 (2010): 837–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1160/th10-02-0099.
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SummaryUnfractionated heparin (UFH) monitoring is subject to substantial inter-laboratory variation. We analysed results of annual coagulation surveys administered by the Quality Management Program – Laboratory Services (Toronto, ON, Canada) from 2003 to 2007 to evaluate variation in UFH monitoring across Ontario. Participating laboratories performed an activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) utilising their local methodology on lyophilised human plasma spiked with UFH. In the 2006 and 2007 surveys, laboratories licensed to perform anti-Xa assays also reported anti-Xa activity results. The APTT differed significantly between heparin-sensitive and heparin-insensitive methods (p<0.0005). Within-method variation was observed and increased with increasing heparin concentration. Among laboratories performing an APTT and anti-Xa, the coefficient of variation was greater in the anti-Xa than in the APTT for both the 2006 (64.0% vs. 10.5%) and 2007 (15.0% vs. 11.6%) surveys. Substantial interlaboratory variation in UFH monitoring, both between and within APTT methods, was observed and was not reduced by use of an anti-Xa assay.
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Tubb, Lisa. "Assembling Victory." Ontario History 111, no. 1 (May 23, 2019): 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1059963ar.
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Located approximately forty kilometres outside of Toronto, Defense Industries Limited (DIL) established one of the largest wartime factories not only in Canada, but also the British Empire, in 1941. For ‘bomb girl’ Louise Johnson, a worker at DIL, her role and impact in the war machine was quite clear: “We knew our importance. If the boys didn’t have shells, they couldn’t win the war.” This paper explores the experience of working in a munitions factory through a case study of Defense Industries Limited in Ajax, Ontario. This study will contribute to a wider understanding of home front service and sacrifice, by shedding light on local, micro-level histories, and on the individuals who contributed greatly to Canada’s munitions production during the Second World War.
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Ledsham, Trudy, Steven Farber, and Nate Wessel. "Dwelling Type Matters: Untangling the Paradox of Intensification and Bicycle Mode Choice." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2662, no. 1 (January 2017): 67–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2662-08.
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Urban intensification is believed to result in a modal shift away from automobiles to more active forms of transportation. This study extended the understanding of bicycle mode choice and the influence of built form through an analysis of dwelling type, density, and mode choice. Apartment dwelling and active transportation are related to intensification, but an understanding of the impact of increased density on bicycling is muddied by the lack of isolation of cycling from walking in many studies and by the lack of controls for the confounding effects of dwelling type. This study examined the relationship between dwelling type and mode choice in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In this study of 223,232 trips, 25 variables were controlled for, and multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to estimate relative risk ratios. Strong evidence was found that a trip that originated from an apartment-based household was less than half as likely to be taken by bicycle as a similar trip that originated from a house-based household in Toronto in 2011. Increased population density of the household location had a positive impact on the likelihood that a trip would be taken by walking and a negligible and uncertain impact on the likelihood that it would be taken by transit. However, increased population density had a negative impact on bicycling. Further analysis found that the negative impact of density did not seem to apply to those who lived in single detached housing but rather only to the likelihood that apartment and townhouse dwellers would cycle. Further research is required to identify the exact barriers to cycling that apartment dwellers experience.
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Atzema, Clare L., Ivona Mostarac, Dana Button, Peter C. Austin, Arshia P. Javidan, Lauren Wintraub, Allen Li, et al. "Assessing effective mask use by the public in two countries: an observational study." BMJ Open 11, no. 12 (December 2021): e049389. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-049389.
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ObjectivesDuring the COVID-19 pandemic wearing a mask in public has been recommended in some settings and mandated in others. How often this advice is followed, how well, and whether it inadvertently leads to more disease transmission opportunities due to a combination of improper use and physical distancing lapses is unknown.DesignCross-sectional observational study performed in June–August 2020.SettingEleven outdoor and indoor public settings (some with mandated mask use, some without) each in Toronto, Ontario, and in Portland, Oregon.ParticipantsAll passers-by in the study settings.Outcome measuresMask use, incorrect mask use, and number of breaches (ie, coming within 2 m of someone else where both parties were not properly masked).ResultsWe observed 36 808 persons, the majority of whom were estimated to be aged 31–65 years (49%). Two-thirds (66.7%) were wearing a mask and 13.6% of mask-wearers wore them incorrectly. Mandatory mask-use settings were overwhelmingly associated with mask use (adjusted OR 79.2; 95% CI 47.4 to 135.1). Younger age, male sex, Torontonians, and public transit or airport settings (vs in a store) were associated with lower adjusted odds of wearing a mask. Mandatory mask-use settings were associated with lower adjusted odds of mask error (OR 0.30; 95% CI 0.14 to 0.73), along with female sex and Portland subjects. Subjects aged 81+ years (vs 31–65 years) and those on public transit and at the airport (vs stores) had higher odds of mask errors. Mask-wearers had a large reduction in adjusted mean number of breaches (rate ratio (RR) 0.19; 95% CI 0.17 to 0.20). The 81+ age group had the largest association with breaches (RR 7.77; 95% CI 5.32 to 11.34).ConclusionsMandatory mask use was associated with a large increase in mask-wearing. Despite 14% of them wearing their masks incorrectly, mask users had a large reduction in the mean number of breaches (disease transmission opportunities). The elderly and transit users may warrant public health interventions aimed at improving mask use.
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Minaker, Leia M., Meghan Lynch, Brian E. Cook, and Catherine L. Mah. "Exploring sales data during a healthy corner store intervention in Toronto: the Food Retail Environments Shaping Health (FRESH) project." Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada 37, no. 10 (October 2017): 342–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.37.10.04.
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Introduction Population health interventions in the retail food environment, such as corner store interventions, aim to influence the kind of cues consumers receive so that they are more often directed toward healthier options. Research that addresses financial aspects of retail interventions, particularly using outcome measures such as store sales that are central to retail decision making, is limited. This study explored store sales over time and across product categories during a healthy corner store intervention in a lowincome neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario. Methods Sales data (from August 2014 to April 2015) were aggregated by product category and by day. We used Microsoft Excel pivot tables to summarize and visually present sales data. We conducted t-tests to examine differences in product category sales by “peak” versus “nonpeak” sales days. Results Overall store sales peaked on the days at the end of each month, aligned with the issuing of social assistance payments. Revenue spikes on peak sales days were driven predominantly by transit pass sales. On peak sales days, mean sales of nonnutritious snacks and cigarettes were marginally higher than on other days of the month. Finally, creative strategies to increase sales of fresh vegetables and fruits seemed to substantially increase revenue from these product categories. Conclusion Store sales data is an important store-level metric of food environment intervention success. Furthermore, data-driven decision making by retailers can be important for tailoring interventions. Future interventions and research should consider partnerships and additional success metrics for retail food environment interventions in diverse Canadian contexts.
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Reis, Catherine, Mark Sinyor, and Ayal Schaffer. "Medications Without a Patient." Crisis 35, no. 4 (July 1, 2014): 283–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910/a000251.
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Background: Little has been published on the sources of medications used in suicide by self-poisoning. Aims: To examine data on self-poisoning occurring through the use of medications returned to the next of kin after the death of a family member or friend (”returned medication”) and to examine public policies relevant to this issue. Method: A review of charts at the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario for deaths by self-poisoning suicide in the City of Toronto occurring between 1998 and 2010 was conducted. Information regarding the source of medication used in self-poisoning was extracted. Federal, provincial, and local policies were also examined to determine whether there are guidelines governing returning medication to next of kin. Results: Of 567 suicide deaths by self-poisoning in Toronto over 13 years, there were eight cases in which returned medication was used in suicide by self-poisoning. No policies prohibiting this type of medication return were identified. Conclusion: Suicide by self-poisoning using returned medications is an important consideration that may not yet be fully appreciated, and has relevance for suicide prevention policies.
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Ferguson, Mark, Hanna Maoh, and Pavlos Kanaroglou. "Simulating Sustainable Urban Gateway Development." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2269, no. 1 (January 2012): 135–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2269-16.
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The term “gateway” refers to a city, or to some transport and logistics-oriented area in a city, that is associated with goods movement in, out, and through the area. Although the definition of a gateway is typically focused on goods movement, a more holistic view is adopted with consideration of the movements of people and the environmental implications of all movements. The relevance of this view is based on the interdependence of commercial and persons mobility, because all moves are happening within the same transport network, and is based on considerations of quality of life in a gateway city. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, was chosen to test these concepts. Hamilton had a suitable geographical location, a busy port, an international airport, good highway and railway access, and an educated labor force. The gateway prospects for Hamilton were given perspective through a study of other prominent gateways that distilled success factors. Analytical work focused on multiregional economic impact modeling to assess the direct and indirect effects of Hamilton's potential evolution as a gateway. Local-level analysis, through integrated urban modeling and simulation of scenarios, stressed the impact of gateway development on commercial goods movement, auto commuting levels, emission levels, and transit ridership. Increased emissions resulting from gateway economic development could be overcome with forward-thinking policy focused on the uncongested movement of goods and people, compact urban form, and enhanced public transit working in concert. The addition of light rail transit in Hamilton and the promotion of a compact urban form would be catalysts for sustainable local gateway development. Finally, gateway-oriented development in Hamilton will cause noticeable regional economic growth. The models that were developed can be calibrated for other cities, given appropriate data.
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Allen, Vanessa G., David J. Farrell, Anuradha Rebbapragada, Jingyuan Tan, Nathalie Tijet, Stephen J. Perusini, Lynn Towns, Stephen Lo, Donald E. Low, and Roberto G. Melano. "Molecular Analysis of Antimicrobial Resistance Mechanisms inNeisseria gonorrhoeaeIsolates from Ontario, Canada." Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 55, no. 2 (November 22, 2010): 703–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/aac.00788-10.
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ABSTRACTSurveillance of gonococcal antimicrobial resistance and the molecular characterization of the mechanisms underlying these resistance phenotypes are essential in order to establish correct empirical therapies, as well as to describe the emergence of new mechanisms in local bacterial populations. To address these goals, 149 isolates were collected over a 1-month period (October-November 2008) at the Ontario Public Health Laboratory, Toronto, Canada, and susceptibility profiles (8 antibiotics) were examined. Mutations in previously identified targets or the presence of some enzymes related to resistance (r), nonsusceptibility (ns) (resistant plus intermediate categories), or reduced susceptibility (rs) to the antibiotics tested were also studied. A significant proportion of nonsusceptibility to penicillin (PEN) (89.2%), tetracycline (TET) (72.3%), ciprofloxacin (CIP) (29%), and macrolides (erythromycin [ERY] and azithromycin; 22.3%) was found in these strains. Multidrug resistance was observed in 18.8% of the collection. Although all the strains were susceptible to spectinomycin and extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ESC) (ceftriaxone and cefixime), 9.4% of them displayed reduced susceptibility to extended-spectrum cephalosporins. PBP 2 mosaic structures were found in all of these ESCrsisolates. Alterations in themtrRpromoter, MtrR repressor (TETr, PENns, ESCrs, and ERYns), porin PIB (TETrand PENns), and ribosomal protein S10 (TETr) and double mutations ingyrAandparCquinolone resistance-determining regions (QRDRs) (CIPr) were associated with and presumably responsible for the resistance phenotypes observed. This is the first description of ESCrsin Canada. The detection of this phenotype indicates a change in the epidemiology of this resistance and highlights the importance of continued surveillance to preserve the last antimicrobial options available.
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Steedman, Robert J. "Modification and Assessment of an Index of Biotic Integrity to Quantify Stream Quality in Southern Ontario." Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 45, no. 3 (March 1, 1988): 492–501. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/f88-059.
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A multivariate measure of stream quality, the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI), was adapted to southern Ontario and calibrated to watershed land use on a variety of spatial scales. The fish fauna at 209 stream locations on 10 watersheds near Toronto, Ontario, was sampled with a backpack electrofisher in the summers of 1984 and 1985 to provide biological information for the IBI. Watershed urbanization, forest cover, and riparian forest were measured from 1:50,000 scale topographic maps and related to IBI estimates by linear regression. Of the biological measures tested, species richness, local indicator species (brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and Rhinichthys spp.), abundance of large piscivores, fish abundance, and incidence of blackspot disease were found to contribute significantly to IBI estimates. Variation in IBI estimates at the same location ranged from 0 to 8% within the sample season and from 0 to 24% between years. Linear models based on measures of watershed urbanization and forest cover accounted for 11–78% of the variation in IBI scores, depending on the spatial scale of the analysis. Significant IBI/land use relationships were found with whole-basin IBI estimates and for IBI estimates from individual stream reaches. Land use immediately upstream of sample stations was most strongly associated with stream quality as measured by the IBI.
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Stroud, Craig, Shuzhan Ren, Junhua Zhang, Michael Moran, Ayodeji Akingunola, Paul Makar, Rodrigo Munoz-Alpizar, et al. "Chemical Analysis of Surface-Level Ozone Exceedances during the 2015 Pan American Games." Atmosphere 11, no. 6 (June 1, 2020): 572. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos11060572.
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Surface-level ozone (O3) continues to be a significant health risk in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA) of Canada even though precursor emissions in the area have decreased significantly over the past two decades. In July 2015, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) led an intensive field study coincident with Toronto hosting the 2015 Pan American Games. During the field study, the daily 1-h maximum O3 standard (80 ppbv) was exceeded twice at a measurement site in North Toronto, once on July 12 and again on July 28. In this study, ECCC’s 2.5-km configuration of the Global Environmental Multi-scale (GEM) meteorological model was combined with the Modelling Air-quality and CHemistry (MACH) on-line atmospheric chemistry model and the Town Energy Balance (TEB) urban surface parameterization to create a new urban air quality modelling system. In general, the model results showed that the nested 2.5-km grid-spaced urban air quality model performed better in statistical scores compared to the piloting 10-km grid-spaced GEM-MACH model without TEB. Model analyses were performed with GEM-MACH-TEB for the two exceedance periods. The local meteorology for both cases consisted of light winds with the highest O3 predictions situated along lake-breeze fronts. For the July 28 case, O3 production sensitivity analysis along the trajectory of the lake-breeze circulation showed that the region of most efficient O3 production occurred in the updraft region of the lake-breeze front, as the precursors to O3 formation underwent vertical mixing. In this updraft region, the ozone production switches from volatile organic compound (VOC)-sensitive to NOx-sensitive, and the local net O3 production rate reaches a maximum. This transition in the chemical regime is a previously unidentified factor for why O3 surface-level mixing ratios maximize along the lake-breeze front. For the July 12 case, differences between the model and observed Lake Ontario water temperature and the strength of lake-breeze opposing wind flow play a role in differences in the timing of the lake-breeze, which impacts the predicted location of the O3 maximum north of Toronto.
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Daiski, Isolde, Nancy Viva Davis Halifax, Gail J. Mitchell, and Andre Lyn. "Homelessness in the Suburbs: Engulfment in the Grotto of Poverty." Studies in Social Justice 6, no. 1 (November 1, 2012): 103–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v6i1.1071.
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This paper describes findings of a research inquiry into the lived experience of homelessness in Peel, a suburban region located in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. It is based on the data from a collaborative project undertaken by members of the Faculties of Health and Education of York University with two local community organizations. The dominant theme of the narratives was that suburban homelessness is similar to being engulfed in a grotto of poverty, isolated from the rest of the community and invisible to it. Once entrapped in the grotto, it is almost impossible to escape from it. There were four sub-themes: (a) falling into the grotto, (b) living/struggling in the grotto, (c) envisioning escape routes from the grotto, and (d) beauty, community and hope in the grotto. Following a discussion of the findings, researchers describe strategies to address homelessness through promotion of social justice for all.
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GRAVEL, Nathalie, and Adama KONÉ. "The Guelph Water connection: The contribution of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to the study of water management in Guelph, Ontario." Cahiers de géographie du Québec 61, no. 174 (November 8, 2018): 489–512. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1053663ar.
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The application of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to the case of water management in the municipality of Guelph, Ontario, located at the periphery of Toronto, highlights the interactions between the multiple water actors in Canada who, while organised as an informal network, build knowledge together on “blue” and resilient cities. It provides a cross-cutting look at water resource co-management and the process of multiscalar public policy development by considering exchanges and negotiations between administrative bodies, the pan-Canadian water network and the organized local civil society. The water soft path approach has federated the actors of the network who share/build ideas together about sustainable municipal water management. The study of the water nexus in Guelph, of its territoriality and its history, allows for a better understanding of how and why a conservationist culture embracing the principles of “green living” has developed in Guelph and why it has become a centre for water innovation in Canada.
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Chan, Justine, Margaret DeMelo, Jacqui Gingras, and Enza Gucciardi. "Challenges of Diabetes Self-Management in Adults Affected by Food Insecurity in a Large Urban Centre of Ontario, Canada." International Journal of Endocrinology 2015 (2015): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/903468.
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Objective.To explore how food insecurity affects individuals’ ability to manage their diabetes, as narrated by participants living in a large, culturally diverse urban centre.Design.Qualitative study comprising of in-depth interviews, using a semistructured interview guide.Setting.Participants were recruited from the local community, three community health centres, and a community-based diabetes education centre servicing a low-income population in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Participants.Twenty-one English-speaking adults with a diagnosis of diabetes and having experienced food insecurity in the past year (based on three screening questions).Method.Using six phases of analysis, we used qualitative, deductive thematic analysis to transcribe, code, and analyze participant interviews.Main Findings.Three themes emerged from our analysis of participants’ experiences of living with food insecurity and diabetes: (1) barriers to accessing and preparing food, (2) social isolation, and (3) enhancing agency and resilience.Conclusion.Food insecurity appears to negatively impact diabetes self-management. Healthcare professionals need to be cognizant of resources, skills, and supports appropriate for people with diabetes affected by food insecurity. Study findings suggest foci for enhancing diabetes self-management support.
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Krakoff, Isabel L. "Colourblind coverage: Mainstream media erasure of intersectionality in large-scale cases of anti-LGBTQ violence." Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture 6, no. 2 (June 1, 2021): 123–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/qsmpc_00049_1.
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Despite extensive critique calling for greater acknowledgement of intersectionality, the LGBTQ community in North America continues to foster a White, upper- and middle-class, gender-normative culture. Media discourse has perpetuated these narratives by downplaying the racism inherent in events centring homophobic violence against racialized LBGTQ people. Through a content analysis and discourse analysis of national and local news sources in the United States and Canada, this study explores the hesitation of journalists to explicitly acknowledge the intersectionality of race and LGBTQ identity in two North American instances of large-scale anti-LGBTQ violence targeting predominantly racialized members of the community. The Bruce McArthur case in Toronto, Ontario involved the serial murder of mostly racialized gay men, while the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida was a mass shooting that took place on Latinx night at an LGBTQ nightclub. In both cases, despite superficial acknowledgement of the victims’ demographics, journalists minimized the racial aspect of the violence in order to present more palatable politicized narratives.
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Sardiwalla, Yaeesh, and Steven F. Morris. "Dr Michael Bell: A Surgeon With Boundless Ingenuity." Plastic Surgery 27, no. 1 (October 3, 2018): 10–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2292550318800320.
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Dr Michael Bell was born in Kingston, Ontario, on October 14, 1944. He was always a curious child who exhibited a tendency toward innovation and experimentation. Dr Bell was accepted into the MD program at the University of Toronto graduating in 1969 before completing his plastic surgery residency there. Dr Bell accepted a position bringing hand and microsurgery expertise to the University of Ottawa in 1976. He pioneered the widespread use of local anesthetic for surgery and developed an innovative relationship with Leonard Lee of Lee Valley tools. Canica Design created several surgical products, including an enhanced design on the traditional scalpel handle and wound closure devices. Dr Bell had a passion for making improvements to enable surgeons to advance patient care. He encourages a philosophy of critical thinking that contributes to continued design in plastic surgery. Dr Bell continues to design and craft new devices with alumni of the Lee Valley Tools team.
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Palmer, Merv D., and Ray J. Dewey. "Verification of a numerical beach water quality model." Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering 14, no. 4 (August 1, 1987): 559–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/l87-081.
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A dynamic two-dimensional finite difference water quality model was developed to predict the fecal coliform densities at the Toronto, Ontario, Eastern Beaches resulting from storm-water discharges. There are 10 storm-water and 2 combined sewer overflows discharging to the beach. Site-specific data were collected for use in the model. This data included local bathymetry, currents, dispersion, fecal coliform mortality rates, winds, receiving water fecal coliform densities, and discharge pollutographs. Specially designed field fecal coliform surveys were required to calibrate and verify the model since the storm effects are very dynamic in both time and space. The verified model was then used to estimate the reduction in fecal coliform densities at the beaches for different intensity storms for different remedial works. The improvements resulting from the different remedial works were quantified as the number of hours when the fecal coliform densities exceeded 100 counts/dL. Key words: beach fecal coliform predictions, storm runoff, water quality, numerical modelling, verification.
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Wang, Lu, Gabby Lee, and Ian Williams. "The Spatial and Social Patterning of Property and Violent Crime in Toronto Neighbourhoods: A Spatial-Quantitative Approach." ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 8, no. 1 (January 21, 2019): 51. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijgi8010051.
Full textAbstract:
Criminal activities are often unevenly distributed over space. The literature shows that the occurrence of crime is frequently concentrated in particular neighbourhoods and is related to a variety of socioeconomic and crime opportunity factors. This study explores the broad patterning of property and violent crime among different socio-economic stratums and across space by examining the neighbourhood socioeconomic conditions and individual characteristics of offenders associated with crime in the city of Toronto, which consists of 140 neighbourhoods. Despite being the largest urban centre in Canada, with a fast-growing population, Toronto is under-studied in crime analysis from a spatial perspective. In this study, both property and violent crime data sets from the years 2014 to 2016 and census-based Ontario-Marginalisation index are analysed using spatial and quantitative methods. Spatial techniques such as Local Moran’s I are applied to analyse the spatial distribution of criminal activity while accounting for spatial autocorrelation. Distance-to-crime is measured to explore the spatial behaviour of criminal activity. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) linear regression is conducted to explore the ways in which individual and neighbourhood demographic characteristics relate to crime rates at the neighbourhood level. Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) is used to further our understanding of the spatially varying relationships between crime and the independent variables included in the OLS model. Property and violent crime across the three years of the study show a similar distribution of significant crime hot spots in the core, northwest, and east end of the city. The OLS model indicates offender-related demographics (i.e., age, marital status) to be a significant predictor of both types of crime, but in different ways. Neighbourhood contextual variables are measured by the four dimensions of the Ontario-Marginalisation Index. They are significantly associated with violent and property crime in different ways. The GWR is a more suitable model to explain the variations in observed property crime rates across different neighbourhoods. It also identifies spatial non-stationarity in relationships. The study provides implications for crime prevention and security through an enhanced understanding of crime patterns and factors. It points to the need for safe neighbourhoods, to be built not only by the law enforcement sector but by a wide range of social and economic sectors and services.
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Wen, R., and S. Li. "GENERATIVE DESIGN FOR PRECISION GEO-INTERVENTIONS." ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences X-3/W2-2022 (October 27, 2022): 37–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-x-3-w2-2022-37-2022.
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Abstract. The purpose of this research is to develop an approach for a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) that integrates Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Automated Machine Learning (AutoML), and Hyperparameter Optimization (HPO) to generate precision geo-interventions based on standardized geospatial data and user design constraints. The geo-intervention generation approach involves three steps: (1) Geo-binning, (2) AutoML, and (3) Prediction Optimization. Geo-binning is used to standardize geospatial data into regularized grids as inputs into AutoML models. Prediction optimization generates geo-interventions by applying user-design constraints and optimizing AutoML model output to find optimized input variables that form precise geo-interventions. An experiment in reducing road traffic collisions using infrastructural changes in Toronto, Ontario, Canada was done to evaluate the geo-intervention generation approach. The results of the experiment found that changing the number of schools, red light cameras, and transit shelters in high traffic areas could potentially halve the total number of traffic collisions according to a 80 by 80 geo-binned grid Auto-Sklearn model with a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 117.68. It was also found that user design constraints heavily affected the prediction optimization step as when the areas were altered to an alternative grid of cells with scarce infrastructure, the number of predicted collisions rose by 6127 collisions. Thus, limitations of this study included subjectivity in user design constraints, scalability, and interactivity. Future work involves improving modelling/optimization efficiency and developing an interactive interface for exploring generated precision geo-interventions.
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Chan, T. W., and M. Mozurkewich. "Application of absolute principal component analysis to size distribution data: identification of particle origins." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions 6, no. 5 (October 18, 2006): 10493–522. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acpd-6-10493-2006.
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Abstract. Absolute principal component analysis can be applied, with suitable modifications, to atmospheric aerosol size distribution measurements. This method quickly and conveniently reduces the dimensionality of a data set. The resulting representation of the data is much simpler, but preserves virtually all the information present in the original measurements. Here we demonstrate how to combine the simplified size distribution data with trace gas measurements and meteorological data to determine the origins of the measured particulate matter using absolute principal component analysis. We have applied the analysis to four different sets of field measurements that were conducted at three sites in southern Ontario. Several common factors were observed at all the sites; these were identified as photochemically produced secondary aerosol particles, regional pollutants (including accumulation mode aerosol particles), and trace gas variations associated with boundary layer dynamics. Each site also exhibited a factor associated specifically with that site: local industrial emissions in Hamilton (urban site), processed nucleation mode particles at Simcoe (polluted rural site), and transported fine particles at Egbert (downwind from Toronto).