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Canada's current non-legislated oversight system for animal-based science not only fails to adequately incentivize the replacement of sentient animals as best scientific practice in any meaningful way, but also fails to adequately protect those animals bred, harmed, and killed in the name of science. In this paper, we outline the various shortcomings of the Canadian Council on Animal Care, and we highlight the need for Canada to move towards national legislation akin to that seen in other jurisdictions like the U.K. We conclude that while legislation alone cannot ensure the replacement of sentient animals in science, it appears to be a precondition for significant progress in animal protection and for the development and adoption of non-animal methods.

"The Hoosac railroad tunnel in northwestern Massachusetts was a nineteenth-century engineering and construction marvel on a par with the Brooklyn Bridge, Transcontinental Railroad, and Erie Canal. Its story, however, is far less well-known than these others. In large part this is because when it was finally completed after nearly twenty-five years of work, it was deemed a failure, costing over a hundred lives and tens of millions of dollars. Andrew Black's "Buried Dreams: The Hoosac Tunnel and the Demise of the Railroad Age" does more than refresh the public memory of the project - it explains how a plan of such magnitude and cost came to be in the first place and what forces sustained it over more than two decades to completion. Black also describes the factors that diminished the tunnel's success, even though at the time it was the second-longest railroad tunnel in the world. To do this, Black digs into the special case of Massachusetts, a state disadvantaged by nature and forced periodically to reinvent itself to succeed economically. The Hoosac Tunnel was just one of the state's efforts in this cycle of decline and rejuvenation. However, it was certainly the strangest. Black also explores the intense rivalry between the eastern seaboard states for the spoils of western development in the post-Erie Canal era. His study interweaves the lure of the West, the competition between Massachusetts and its arch-rival New York, the magic of the railroads, and the shifting ground of state and national politics to understand the complicated story of the tunnel. Finally, Black examines how the psychic make-up of Americans before and after the Civil War weighed heavily on the tunnel's story and public perceptions of its promise. By the time it was finished, he contends, the Hoosac Tunnel was no longer the symbol it had once been. The indomitable triumphalism that had given birth to it had faded, and the economic benefits it was meant to usher in never arrived. Indeed, in the years that followed, Massachusetts sold the tunnel for only a fraction of its cost to a private railroad company. "Buried Dreams" is thus also the story of failure on a colossal scale"--

Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1 The Early Years -- CHAPTER 2 Entering Public Life -- CHAPTER 3 The Whig in Swallow Barn -- CHAPTER 4 Tippecanoe and Horse-Shoe Too -- CHAPTER 5 Return to Swallow Barn -- CHAPTER 6 The Quarter Revisited -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z

AbstractFlood levels are available for four river flow gauging station sites in the Spey catchment, northern Scotland, for the major floods of 1768 and 1829. Field survey and Manning's equation were used to estimate peak discharge for each of the historic flood levels, to assist with the assessment of flood frequency. Standard UK methods encourage the use of historical information, but uptake presently appears to be limited. Compared with pooling and single site analyses, graphical re‐assessments of frequency incorporating estimated historical flows represented increases in the 100‐year flood of between 15 and 116%, illustrating that historical information may lead to major shifts in estimated frequency. These results are preferred over pooling results particularly because of the mismatch in the seasonality of major floods on the lower Spey compared with other sites available for pooling. Practitioners are urged to make use of historical flood information, subject to quality assessment, wherever possible.

This paper reports household questionnaire survey results on vulnerability and resilience to flooding from one of the largest and most representative samples (n=593) of households up to 12 years after they were flooded. Results indicate that social differentiation in flood impacts are relatively small soon after a flood, but widen over time, with socially-disadvantaged groups displaying less recovery. The patterns of social differentiation in vulnerability and resilience to flooding differ markedly according to the type and timescale of the impact, with some normally socially advantaged groups (e.g. professionals and homeowners) being most vulnerable to short-term impacts. In contrast to assumptions in existing literature and in flood vulnerability indices used by governments in flood risk management, older residents (age 70+) have greater resilience to flood impacts. As in previous research, low income is linked to lower resilience, particularly in the long term. Prior experience of flooding erodes rather than enhances resilience to flooding. Magnitude and frequency of flooding are more important than social categories in determining vulnerability to flooding, and flood warnings are effective at reducing short-term vulnerability. Underlying influences on resilience to natural disasters are complex and may only be revealed by multivariate analysis and not always be evident in simple observed patterns. The paper concludes that vulnerability and resilience to flooding are sensitive to financial resources, institutional support (chiefly from a landlord) and capacity to deal with disruption (chiefly time availability, which is low among professionals and high among retired people). These findings challenge the assumption that vulnerability to flooding is closely linked to general measures of social deprivation, with implications for the appropriateness of some flood vulnerability indicators used in flood risk management.