CCWORK protocol: a longitudinal study of Canadian Correctional Workers’ Well-being, Organizations, Roles and Knowledge

IntroductionKnowledge about the factors that contribute to the correctional officer’s (CO) mental health and well-being, or best practices for improving the mental health and well-being of COs, have been hampered by the dearth of rigorous longitudinal studies. In the current protocol, we share the approach used in the Canadian Correctional Workers’ Well-being, Organizations, Roles and Knowledge study (CCWORK), designed to investigate several determinants of health and well-being among COs working in Canada’s federal prison system.Methods and analysisCCWORK is a multiyear longitudinal cohort design (2018–2023, with a 5-year renewal) to study 500 COs working in 43 Canadian federal prisons. We use quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments (ie, surveys, interviews and clinical assessments) to assess participants’ mental health, correctional work experiences, correctional training experiences, views and perceptions of prison and prisoners, and career aspirations. Our baseline instruments comprise two surveys, one interview and a clinical assessment, which we administer when participants are still recruits in training. Our follow-up instruments refer to a survey, an interview and a clinical assessment, which are conducted yearly when participants have become COs, that is, in annual ‘waves’.Ethics and disseminationCCWORK has received approval from the Research Ethics Board of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (File No. 20190481). Participation is voluntary, and we will keep all responses confidential. We will disseminate our research findings through presentations, meetings and publications (e.g., journal articles and reports). Among CCWORK’s expected scientific contributions, we highlight a detailed view of the operational, organizational and environmental stressors impacting CO mental health and well-being, and recommendations to prison administrators for improving CO well-being.

What women want: a qualitative analysis of women’s motivation to pursue surgical careers

Objective: This study was undertaken to explore what motivates women to pursue surgical careers. Design: Qualitative methods were employed in this interview-based study. Interviews were recorded, manually anonymized and transcribed, and thematized using NVivo software. Setting: This study was conducted at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. Participants: Recruitment for this study via email requested volunteers who identified as women and were medical students considering a career in surgery. Recruitment continued until data was saturated. A total of 8 participants volunteered and were included. Results: This study revealed five themes associated with women's motivation to pursue surgical careers; mentorship, inherent aspirations, lived experience, and proof of capability, preconceived ideals. The commonest theme was mentorship. The women who participated in this study employed unconventional methods when seeking mentorship, some of which are unique to this work. Conclusions: The most prevalent factors influencing women's motivation to pursue surgical careers are mentorship, inherent aspirations, participants' lived experience, a desire to prove their capability, and their preconceived ideals about surgery. All factors were deeply influential over one another. A greater understanding of these factors may help future researchers and educators create a more fulfilling career for women in surgery.

Experimental Study of Combined Wave and Ice Loads on a Fixed Offshore Structure

Ice floes in the marginal ice zone (MIZ) are exposed to wind, wave, and current forces which greatly influence the dynamics of the ice floes. ISO 19906 recommends considering combined wave and ice actions while designing offshore structures for arctic and cold regions. Few studies have focused on ice-structure interactions in waves. There are not many tools available to estimate these combined loads on structures. A numerical tool “SAMICE” has been developed to simulate the hydrodynamics of wave-ice interactions, but there exists a lack of data for a realistic MIZ under wave actions for validation studies of the numerical code. To address this gap and to investigate the hydrodynamics of ice floes under waves, a set of experiments was conducted at the wave tank of Ocean Engineering Research Center (OERC) of Memorial University of Newfoundland. A six-component dynamometer was used to measure the loads on a model scale aluminum cylindrical gravity-based offshore structure. Loads were measured for five regular waves of various steepness in combination with three current speeds. Two ice concentrations with various floe sizes of random shapes were prepared from polypropylene sheets to represent the MIZ. Most of the tests were repeated three times and a statistical approach was used to analyze the loads. The preliminary analysis shows that the average wave-ice loads may be determined by ISO guidelines, but the predictions of impulse loads from individual wave-driven ice floes are very uncertain.

Geological Association of Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Section Abstracts: Spring Technical Meeting, February 22 and 23, 2021

The Annual Technical Meeting was held virtually on February 22 and 23, 2021 from various home offices, dens, and bedrooms across St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador and beyond.This year the meeting kicked off on Monday with a Special Session to pay tribute to R. Frank Blackwood who passed away in the summer of 2020. Frank was a strong supporter of bedrock mapping, mineral exploration, and the mining industry in Newfoundland and Labrador which is reflected in the following abstracts. Tuesday featured a General Session with presentations on a wide range of geoscience topics.As always, this meeting was brought to participants by volunteer efforts and would not have been possible without the time and energy of the executive and other members of the section such as Anne Westhues, Jared Butler, James Conliffe, Shawn Duquet, Sarah Hashmi, Zsuzsanna Magyarosi, Annie Parrell, and Karen Waterman. The organizers are also indebted to their sponsors, particularly the Geological Association of Canada, Department of Earth Sciences (Memorial University of Newfoundland), and the Geological Survey of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Energy, Industry, and Technology.Although the abstracts are modified and edited as necessary for clarity and to conform to Atlantic Geology format and standards, the journal editors do not take responsibility for their content or quality.

Acoustic Search and Detection of Oil Plumes Using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

We introduce an adaptive sampling method that has been developed to support the Backseat Driver control architecture of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) Explorer autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The design is based on an acoustic detection and in-situ analysis program that allows an AUV to perform automatic detection and autonomous tracking of an oil plume. The method contains acoustic image acquisition, autonomous triggering, and thresholding in the search stage. A new biomimetic search pattern, the bumblebee flight path, was designed to maximize the spatial coverage in the oil plume detection phase. The effectiveness of the developed algorithm was validated through simulations using a two-dimensional planar plume model and a 90-degree scanning sensor model. The results demonstrate that the bumblebee search design combined with a genetic solution for the Traveling Salesperson Problem outperformed a conventional lawnmower survey, reducing the AUV travel distance by up to 75.3%. Our plume detection strategy, using acoustic sensing, provided data of plume location, distribution, and density, over a sector in contrast with traditional chemical oil sensors that only provide readings at a point.

Calculating Frictional Losses in Belleville Springs by Geometrical Interpolation

The use of Belleville springs has been proven to be beneficial in tackling the problems related to elastic interaction, creep, differential thermal expansion or in the isolation of seismic vibrations in bolted joints. Because of its high and easily variable spring rates, the use of these springs can also be observed in passive vibration assisted rotary drilling (VARD) tools. Because of relative movement of spring with respect to supporting surfaces and the mating spring surfaces, frictional losses in the spring take place during each compression and relaxation cycle leading to a slightly different load-deflection curve from what has been defined in the literature. The geometry of the spring combined with different stacking configurations complicate the study of frictional losses in these kinds of springs. This work presents a new method to calculate the displacement of different points of Belleville springs during its loading and unloading using geometrical interpolation method. The results of spring displacement are then used to develop a model to calculate frictional load as a function of spring deflection, which is used to analyse load-deflection curves of springs with different dimensional and frictional parameters. The developed methodology is used to plot and understand characteristics curves of four different kind of Belleville springs; High Load, Standard, Force Limiting and Force Adjusting Belleville springs by plotting the graphs for different free-height to thickness and diameter ratios. In the later section of the paper, the proposed methodology has been used to visualize the load-deflection characteristics of Belleville springs used in the p-VARD tool of the Large Drilling Simulator, one of the state-of-the-art drilling simulators at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Results show that understanding of the characteristic curves of different spring configuration helps to plan to drill with desired WOB using a p-VARD tool.