Canadian Research Articles

Wilms tumor in three patients with Bloom syndrome

Bloom syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disease character ized by growth failure, sun-sensitive facial telang!ectasia, and defective immunity. Cytogenetically, the syndrome is defined by a high frequency of sister chromatid exchanges? Increased risk of cancer has been recognized as a feature of Bloom syndrome since 1965. 2 In children with this syndrome, acute leukemia and lymphoma have been the predominant cancers, wi th solid tumors in older patients. W e now report three unrela ted children with Bloom syndrome in whom Wilms tumor was diagnosed independent ly at three Canad ian centers from 1981 to 1985. The development of Wilms tumor in three pat ients with Bloom syndrome among just more than 100 pat ients worldwide suggests tha t the incidence of this tumor in these pat ients is markedly increased.

FACTORS AFFECTING GRAIN DRY-DOWN IN EARLY-MATURING EUROPEAN AND CANADIAN CORN HYBRIDS

Twenty-two corn (Zea mays L.) hybrids of European (EUR), of Canadian (CAN) and of Canadian origin but of European phenotype (CPE) were compared for factors affecting rate of dry-down over 11 location-years (1977–1979) in Manitoba and Ontario. Percent kernel moisture (PKM) of CAN hybrids at 20–30 days postsilking was equal to or higher than that of EUR hybrids; 40–60 days later PKM was at least 3% lower for the former compared to the latter. Differences in resistances to kernel water loss among hybrid groups were related to differences in husk and pericarp characteristics. Husks of the CPE hybrids senesced approximately 8 days before those of the EUR hybrids and weighed less. In a 2-yr husk modification experiment involving hybrids of CAN and EUR classification, PKM at final harvest of Limagrain 11 (EUR) with husks completely removed was reduced to a value similar to that of the control of Stewart 2300 (CAN). Pericarp thickness of CAN and CPE hybrids was 80–85% of the mean thickness of the EUR hybrids.Key words: Dry-down, early corn, European, Canadian

Theatrical Touring and Founding in North America

This is a stimulating collection of essays about the highminded and lowminded princ iples and working methods which have characterised some of the salient developments in North American theatre history from the 1880s to the present. Seven of the papers come from the International Federation for Theatre Research conference held in Toronto in 1979. A further six supplementary papers were either delivered at other conferences or written specially for this volume. To the best of my knowledge this is the first scholarly book to engage in even a miscellaneous analytica l history of theatre in both Canada and the United States. Indeed I wish that the comparative approach had been pursued more fully; for apart from Len Conolly’s cogent but alas all too brief editor ial introduction in combination with his useful concluding bibl iographical survey, there is no paper concerned chiefly with how and to what ends the two cultures have interacted theatrically. This invigorating respons ib ility is left to the readers’ powers of discernment. For Canad ian readers in particular the conclusions are not always happy ones; though they are indeed the ones which we have long schooled ourselves to tolerate. Generation after generation, all across the country, in the theatre as in the other arts, we have been forced to raise up the roof beams with a clarion cry so as to be heard above the infernal din created not only by the Americans but also, of course, by the British and the French.

The language of advertising: Who controls quality?

Robert George Wyckham is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University and at present Director Undergraduate Programs. He was formerly Visiting Professor at the Michigan State University and the University of Manchester. He was the author of Problems in Branch Bank Administration and coauthor of Images and Marketing and Small Business Management: Text and Cases. He further published articles in various journals, e.g. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences. Journal of Retailing and European Journal of Marketing. Peter M. Banting is Professor at the Faculty of Business, McMaster University and at present Visiting Professor at the Institute for International Studies and Training, Fujinomiya, Japan. He was formerly Visiting Professor at the Cranfield School of Management, Bedfordshire, England, at York University, and at the Wilfrid Laurier University. His most important publications are: Ross, R. E. and P. M. Banting, 'Improving Canada's Global Competitiveness', Business Quarterly (1981), 41-46 and Banting, P.M., Canadian Mar keting (McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., Toronto, 1977), 305 pp. Anthony K. Wensley is Lecturer and Head of the Micro computor Group at the University of Waterloo. He was formerly Lecturer at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. His most important publications are: (The Teaching of Computing Using Micro Computers', I.B.S.C.U.G. Conference (San Francisco, 1982), and Wensley, A. K., 'The Efficiency of Cana dian Foreign Exchange Markets', McMaster Faculty of Business Working Paper, No. 161. of syntax1 to accomplish the advertiser's objec tives are critical functions in the development of advertising. The advertiser chooses words and syntax in order to achieve specific marketing goals with a particular target audience. In determining the language to be used, decisions are often made to break the commonly accepted rules of standard English. The Pillsbury Frosting commercial which states that the product "spreads as good as it tastes" is an example. The advertiser apparently decided to use "the language of the people" as opposed to using correct grammar. Presumably this was done to communicate more effectively. Rules of grammar also may be broken as a device to attract attention. No doubt the copy writer who developed the Sprite advertising made such a decision when the phrase "the uppest taste" was selected. Large numbers of print advertisements contain phrases which are treated as sentences. It is generally accepted that short sets of words are easily com prehended. Hence the advertiser ignores gram matical convention. Phrases, such as "In hardest water... up to 30% cleaner", in a Calgon adver tisement, are based on an open flaunting of the traditional rules of English. Nevertheless, the advertiser achieves some degree of memorability and uniqueness (Nilsen, 1976). Those who create advertising copy which does not conform with standard English generally do so with marketing communication objectives in mind. It is not known whether advertising messages which use language that transgresses accepted rules of grammar are more powerful as com munication devices than grammatically correct messages. The literature of advertising and marketing is silent on this issue. However, it seems likely that, wittingly or unwittingly,

Tenants of Unhousement

SOCIOLOGICALLY, I am an American. Psychologically, a Ca nadian. Sentimentally, a Qu?b?cois. My passport says Canadian, my legal status says immigrant. Resident Alien. Everywhere I see dualities. The continent of gringos is sliced in half, and I occupy both, uneasily. My parents quartered that northern half between them: English and French, and all the silence that entails. They are my sub-conscious, my libido, my unlived life. In Canada I am forever their child, forever banging on nailed-over doors. The United States of America is my land of answers, land of relative simplicities. My mother was the progressive; more adventurous and more indepen dent than the cautious Manitoba family that formed her. Perhaps again I am lying. I will leave open the possibility that she was not more adventurous and independent. Rather, that she was only more restless and more lost. She'd left the village of Wawanesa where her father was the town doctor, to take a sensible teaching degree in Winnipeg, then to please her father she'd taught village school in Saskatchewan and Manitoba for three Depression years at a thousand dollars a year, saving it all. She left for Europe in 1931. Design was her passion. She went to the Bauhaus. She studied in Weimar, Dresden, and Leipzig. Her journals and letters report briefly on the Masters' lectures, but pay lavish atten tion to medieval doors, cornices, rococco ceilings and above all, Dresden porcelains. There they were, the masters of functional modernism lec turing all around her, and she was mad for Dresden ceramics and Meissen ware. At one time I might have snickered. How dare she ignore The Revolution she'd travelled so far, and sacrificed so much for? I'm more interested, now, as she was perhaps, in the peripheries of upheaval. She was a bourgeoise, a commuter, keeping a pied-?-terre in the Bauhaus, but spending her hours with the underlying, sentimental, ornamental culture.

WISC-R Information and Digit Span Scores of American and Canadian Children

This study investigated differences in per formance between third-grade American and Cana dian children on two subtests of the Wechsler In telligence Scale for Children—Revised (WISC-R). The Information subtest, which is culturally laden, and the Digit Span subtest, which is less subject to cultural factors, were administered to 30 American and 30 Canadian children. Mean Information scores in the two groups were not significantly dif ferent, but Canadian children scored significantly higher on Digit Span. This difference was attri butable to their higher mean score on Digit Span Forward. Canadian and American Digit Span Backward mean scores did not differ. Results are discussed in terms of Canadian and American educational and test-taking experiences.

Examination of a Stereotype: Athletes as Conservatives

The popular wisdom of American student groups and media representatives in the early 1970's characterized athletes as political conservatives. Such beliefs became emotion-charged and widely verbalized to the extent that it was possible to recognize the existence of a stereotypic image of the "jock" as a campus political deviant. Radical students and media publicity helped in the attachment of political con servatism to Canadian intercollegiate athletes. Research evidence, however, was una vailable to support or deny this stereotype. Utilizing the McClosky Political Conservatism Scale, a self-report scale, and a variety of attitude items, the political ideologies of athletes and nonathletes in a Ca nadian university setting were evaluated. Both groups were found to be generally liberal in their orientations although some inconsistencies were evident with regard to specific issues. The stereotype was clearly at variance with the reality of the particular setting and the discrepancy with the American data was discussed in terms of, (a) the in teraction style employed by the coaches at the particular institution; (b) the different approach to the role of the student-athlete in a society where athletic skill is not gen erally subject to scholarship assistance; and (c) the degree of integration of athletes into the wider university community.

A Symposium on the Appointment, Discipline and Removal of Judges

Members of panel at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Bar Association, 1971, suggest and analyze possible methods of improving the present process of selection and appointment as well as the disciplining and removal of judges. The Chairman, Mr. D. C. McDonald, outlines proposal for system of judicial appointments as suggested by Professor E. A. Tollefson in recent article. From Professor Tollefson's proposal Mr. McDonald extracts several "possibilities" including an intensive training course for judges upon their appointment, periodic refresher courses for all judges and the extension and upgrading of the "research staffs" available to the courts. The Chairman goes on to compare and contrast the disciplinary provisions that are applicable to Supreme, District and Provincial Court judges. Panel member G. M. Stirling, Q.C., who has served on the National Committee on the Judiciary of the Cana dian Bar Association, describes its function and method of operation and concludes that it is only first step in the process towards an improved method of selecting the most competent and highly qualified judges. Mr. Stirling suggests that modified form of the "Missouri plan" could be followed in Canada. The plan would involve the setting up in every province of standing independent commission "which would screen all qualified and available lawyers in the province and submit limited number of names to the Minister of Justice" from which the Minister would make his selection. Panel member, W. H. Hurlburt, Q.C., also endorses an "appropriate adapta tion" of the Missouri plan and goes on to suggest how the nominating commission might be constituted. With regard to the removal and disciplining of judges, Mr. Hurlburt approves of the concept of Judicial Council as set up by an amendment to the Judges Act (S.C. 1970-71-72 c. 55) but suggests that if the Council is to operate efficiently it must have an office and admin istrative staff. Panel member F. C. Muldoon, Q.C., submits that al

The Trial Judge: Pilot, Participant, or Umpire?

The recent decision in Phillips v. Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. et al.t has reopened question which some might have considered to be somewhat settled: the role and function of the trial judge. Professor Silverman has taken the Phillips decision as cue for making comprehensive analysis of the English and Cana dian case law concerning the trial judge's function, in civil as well as criminal cases. Such issues as the rule requiring the presentation of evidence in open court, the limitations on the trial judge's right to call witnesses, his interference in the examination of witnesses and his intervention in the trial as whole are examined. Professor Silverman notes that although there may be dicta in some criminal and civil cases which apply to both, the better approach for the trial judge is to restrict himself "as much as possible" to the principles set out in cases of the same nature (criminal or civil) as the one before him. However, the author does lay down several general propositions delineating the boundaries of the trial and the role of the trial judge, which are applicable to both criminal and civil cases. Professor Silverman concludes, that although a trial judge may be pilot he "is certainly more than an umpire, watching the sporting-theory of litigation in action; and he is less than participant in that he should not enter into the fray of combat nor take on the mantle of counsel".

What Happened To the Canadian Farm Radio Forum?

The Canadian listening group project, the Farm Radio Forum, was the subject of great praise in its 25 year history before its demise in April, 1965. The project was established in 1940 because of converging influences through a working agreement between three organizations—the Canadian Association for Adult Educa tion, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. The author has attempted through analysis of correspondence, interviews, and available literature to account for the decline of the project. Three tentative con clusions are: 1. as the sponsoring institutions matured their con cerns diverged more and more, 2. a fully-working field struc ture for organizing and maintaining the listening groups was never established, 3. the groups never become integrated into the Ca nadian national system of institutions or its power structure.