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Science & Technology

AI company is developing technologies to improve healthcare

by Sam Min on

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On Feb. 8, Anthony Phalen, a strategic partner development manager at the company DeepMind came to McGill to present a talk on Deep Learning (DL), as part of SUS Academia Week 2018. DeepMind is a London-based artificial intelligence (AI) company with a research centre located in Montreal. The company was acquired by Google-parent Alphabet in 2014, and Phalen started off the talk by presenting DeepMind’s mandate.

“DeepMind is focused on two things, [solving] intelligence and [applying] AI to real world problems,” Phalen said. “[Solving intelligence] means to design general artificial intelligence algorithms [that] are capable of learning from raw experience data and perform well on [many] tasks just like humans can.”

DL focuses on learning data representations, and operates as a virtual brain within a computer.

“Deep Learning is a crude representation of the human brain,” Phalen said. “It is essentially an input layer and an output layer, and a hidden layer [in between]. Each of these layers has nodes or neurons, [they represent] different mathematical formulas. Deep Learning is essentially a pattern recognition.”

An example of DL is facial recognition on mobile devices. Many phones nowadays are able to associate facial images with the person they belong to. Even under tricky lighting, these technologies can still recognize the individual. For a phone to recognize one’s face through DL, one must provide multiple photos of a particular face.

As intriguing as DL is, DeepMind is better known for another type of learning in AI: Reinforcement Learning (RL). Unlike DL, RL enables AI to learn from scratch without human guidance.

“It is simply given a goal,” Phalen said. “Put this in a [learning] environment and [let it take] actions to reach that goal.”

An example of this type of environment is the game Brick-Breaker, which former iPod Nano and Video users might remember fondly from the earlier 2000s. Players slide the click wheel left and right to move a platform to avoid the ball from flying off the bottom of the screen. To pass the game, players must destroy all the stacked bricks, with the ball bouncing off the platform faster and faster with every bounce. Using RL, the AI plays the game on its own. In the first hundred rounds, it struggles. But at some point, it will achieve a superhuman level of performance that is learned. The amazing fact about the algorithm of reinforcement learning designed by DeepMind is that a single algorithm could be used on a hundred different arcades with disparate set of rules; it achieved a superhuman playing level on 80 different games.

RL has crucial importance in the development of AI. Through RL, AI is able to come up with never-before-considered solutions to problem-solving, just as it had achieved a superhuman performance in Brick-Breaker through adopting novel gaming strategies.

“Artificial Intelligence could potentially be useful for real world application [because it could] come up with novel ways to [tackle a problem],” Phalen said.

For example, according to Phalen, AI equipped with RL in the healthcare system may benefit patients and physicians. DeepMind has been collaborating with the National Health Service, based in London, United Kingdom, since 2016, and their team goals are threefold, focused on enhancing experience and minimizing costs.

“[We’re interested in] delivering better clinical outcome for patients, better clinician-patient experience and reducing the cost for the healthcare system,” Phalen said.

There are several issues inherent to virtually every model of healthcare. First, physician burnout is a ubiquitous problem that is seen in public healthcare systems all over the world. Physicians oversee too many patients per day, and there often aren’t enough of them to do properly address patients’ concerns.

“[Burnout] is a problem [that] technology can potentially help solve,” Phalen said. Another problem prevalent in healthcare is the failure to integrate recent technological developments in hospitals. Although governments have spent much on upgrading computers, physicians still resort to using pagers and fax machines to communicate with one another. DeepMind believes that AI using an RL algorithm could offer medical staff more user-friendly applications that would allow them to communicate more quickly with one another.

Features

Softboys

by Jackie Houston on

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If you ask someone what a “softboy” is, they either know exactly what you mean, or they have no idea.

 

When I asked Dylan Adamson,  U2 Cultural Studies, to define the term, he rattled off a list of weirdly specific, seemingly unrelated qualities.

 

“He talks about feminism a lot,” Adamson said. “He’ll recommend you bands. He’s an active SoundCloud user. He doesn’t say movie, he always says film.”

 

Yet I found myself nodding along to each example, because I know that guy. He’s in my philosophy class. He was on my floor in residence. He’s such a softboy.

 

I felt the same way reading the Medium piece, “Have You Encountered the Softboy?” by Alan Hanson. Sparse yet laser-specific, it describes a young guy who is similar to the better-known “fuckboy,” but not quite identical. He “is Nice yet Complicated,” “orders cheap beer backed with bottom-shelf whiskey,” and “may be named Tom. Or Phillip.” Again, I know that guy. Yes, I have encountered the softboy.

 

When I reached out to Anthony Synnott, sociology and anthropology professor at Concordia University and author of Rethinking Men: Heroes, Victims, Villains, to ask about the term, he’d never heard of it, so I forwarded Hanson’s piece to him. When we spoke on the phone, he couldn’t help but laugh about the article.

Science & Technology

Swap out your plastic bags: Montreal Bag Ban calls consumers to action

by Angelina Giordano on

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On Jan. 1, 2018, Montreal became the first major Canadian city to implement a ban on plastic bags through its enforcement of By-law 16-051, a by-law prohibiting the distribution of single-use plastic bags deemed detrimental to the environment by the city.

But what exactly does the plastic bag ban mean? When taking a closer look, some interesting details become apparent; firstly, the kind of bags that are being banned.

According to the City of Montreal, the bannable bags are single-use plastic shopping bags that are less than 50-microns thick. Other banned bags include those that are oxo-degradable, oxo-fragmentable, and biodegradable, regardless of their thickness.

At first glance, it might seem counter-productive to ban oxo-degradable, oxo-fragmentable, and biodegradable bags, items that are branded as environmentally-friendly. But while their marketing might indicate otherwise, biodegradable plastic bags never completely disappear. Instead of completely decomposing, they use an oxidizing agent that causes them to degrade into infinitely smaller and smaller plastic pieces. Some of these pieces can become so tiny that they are invisible to the naked eye, and have become a widespread pollutant.

While many Montrealers have celebrated this ban as an environmental victory, why not ban all plastic bags? Bags that are more than 50-microns thick are still legal and have been in circulation since the ban took effect. This number was inspired by a European mandate and is also a standard being used in California. The reasoning for the limit is that bags thicker than 50-microns are less likely to blow away in the wind, and are generally made of recycled plastics and are recyclable themselves.

Ultimately, the ban is a step forward, but will not eliminate the presence of plastic in retail stores. It does not forbid the produce bags used to transport food items to the cash, or that hold foods that need to be separated for hygiene, such as meats, fruit, vegetables, or fish.   

For business owners, a grace period of about six months will allow businesses to hold off on switching their bags until June 5, 2018—World Environment day.

To encourage shoppers to reuse bags, the city of Montreal has created posters with the slogan, “Je fais ma part, j’ai mon sac,” translated from French to “I do my part, I have my bag.”

When asked about the effects of the ban on Montreal, François Jarry, a first year master’s student in Sport and Exercise Psychology at McGill, expressed his support for the push to choose greener shopping options.  

“I was aware of the phasing out of plastic bags, but I didn’t notice a difference in the bags since I always bring my own reusable bags and backpack,” Jarry told The McGill Tribune. “I think [the ban] will have a positive impact on the environment since it will force people to bring their own reusable bags.”

Montreal has taken one step forward in removing plastic from today’s society. On the other hand, since a complete ban on plastic bags has not been enacted, the change may have less of an effect than some had hoped. However, small actions do make a big difference, so it is up to each of us to rid the environment of this pesky foe. Now there are so many different options for reusable bags that it can also be a fashion statement. So do your part, and bring your own bag the next time you shop.  

Editorial, Opinion

McGill must prioritize learning outside of the classroom

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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University students often struggle to find stable employment in their field of study post-graduation, but incorporating experiential learning into post-secondary education can give students the marketable skills and valuable experience they need to succeed.

In its essence, experiential learning means learning-by-doing, rather than acquiring knowledge through lecture and reading-based instruction. Experiential learning allows students to acquire the practical skills and résumé-boosting training they need to flourish in their future careers. It also gives individuals the opportunity to experiment and discover which jobs are most suited to them. Learning-by-doing is a proven way for students to apply the important theoretical knowledge they’ve learned in the classroom to real-life scenarios.

Whether experiential learning takes the form of an internship or work experience, a field study, research, or anything that allows students to develop practical skills, universities—including ours—are starting to see its value.

But, opportunities for experiential learning at McGill are few and far between. Recently, McGill has advertised extra-curricular initiatives such as Building 21, a vaguely-described open-lab where students can experiment with ideas, and Skills 21, a series of workshops aimed at supporting “students in the development of 21st century skills, values, and attitudes.” These efforts seem more cosmetic than pragmatic, and touch relatively few within McGill’s large student body. To make the benefits of experiential learning available for all ambitious students, McGill must incorporate this form of education directly into its academic curricula. Not only will it better prepare students for employment, but it will enhance the quality of a McGill education.

McGill’s experiential learning website lists field studies and study abroad opportunities as valuable ways for students to apply theoretical knowledge while still gaining course credits. Programs such as the Desautels Faculty of Management’s Hot Cities of the World Tour or McGill’s Barbados Field Study Semester offer enriching experiences that able students should undoubtedly take advantage of. However, these opportunities present significant financial barriers, have enrollment caps, and are often tied to a particular department or faculty. As a result, they only benefit the privileged few who are eligible and able to afford them.

Incorporating experiential learning as an integral part of academic programs will not only boost students’ future career potential, it will enrich the value of a McGill degree.

Some majors, such as Urban Studies, require a field studies course in Montreal. These courses extend the benefits of experiential learning to a broader network of students. All departments should make an effort to develop these types of courses because they diversify students’ learning experience and offer the chance for them to put their theoretical skills to the test.

Granted, the university community offers a plethora of clubs and extracurricular activities that give students a chance to develop expertise relevant to future careers; however, these initiatives are largely student-driven, and often privilege-based, as they are unpaid and pose an extra time requirement that is unfeasible for students working part-time jobs.

To ensure that all students have the opportunity to acquire meaningful work experience, many Canadian universities, such as Concordia, Dalhousie, and Waterloo, have incorporated co-operative (co-op) education into their academic programs. Concordia’s co-op program “bridges university life and the working world,” and boasts the opportunity for students to “test drive their careers.” While McGill’s Internship Offices Network is a valuable tool for connecting students with employers, it only offers a handful of internship opportunities for students each year, many of which are unpaid. Integrating work experience into degree programs ensures that more students can reap the benefits of practical experience.

The options are virtually limitless: From research opportunities, to work placements at local companies, to offering classes that teach practical work-based skills, McGill has many opportunities to engage in experiential learning. The key is making sure these opportunities are diverse, widespread, accessible, and clearly communicated to students. Incorporating experiential learning as an integral part of academic programs will not only boost students’ future career potential, it will enrich the value of a McGill degree. If McGill doesn’t adapt to the changing academic landscape, future students may look elsewhere for a more hands-on education.

Participating in an extracurricular such as moot court or a student publication, studying abroad, or doing research for a professor are just a few ways students can increase their employability in a dynamic workforce, and explore potential career interests. However, in order for all students to benefit from experiential learning, McGill must develop a more comprehensive and consistent framework that integrates it into class curricula. Stepping outside of the familiar lecture hall education environment might be scary, but—as is becoming increasingly evident by rising youth unemployment—so is the real world. Experiential learning will give students the skills they need while at McGill to ensure post-grad life doesn’t look so bleak.

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]
McGill, News

McGill to begin implementing campus smoking ban in May

by Teagan Chapman & Mairead Shaw on

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McGill’s new smoking policy, set to come into effect on May 1, prohibits smoking on both the Downtown and Macdonald campuses outside of newly designated smoking areas. These areas will be gradually phased out over the next five years and, with the exception of permanent smoking areas near the upper residences and Solin Hall, the Downtown campus will become entirely smoke-free in 2023.

On the Downtown campus, six smoking areas will be designated behind the James Administration building, east of Morrice Hall, near Burnside Hall, near the McIntyre Medical building, near the upper residences, and outside of Solin Hall. At the Macdonald Campus and the Gault Reserve, smoking areas have not yet been designated.

The McGill Medical Students’ Society began exploring the idea of McGill’s Downtown campus becoming entirely smoke-free in 2015. In 2016, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill University (PGSS) held separate online referenda regarding the idea, garnering support from 73 and 77 per cent of their student bodies, respectively. SSMU then drafted a smoke-free policy and submitted it to the University for consideration.

The University Health and Safety Committee endorsed plans for a smoke-free campus in January 2017, and McGill’s Board of Governors subsequently adopted the new Policy Concerning Smoking at McGill University on Dec. 12, 2017. In an email circulated to the entire student body on Jan. 29, the McGill administration described its plans for enforcing the new smoking spaces.

“These areas will be identified by signage, and people smoking elsewhere on campus other than in these areas will be respectfully asked to smoke either in one of the designated areas or on a public street,” the Media Relations Office wrote in the email.

The Quebec Ministry of Health and Human Services is supportive of the transition. In an email to the The McGill Tribune, Marie-Claude Lacasse, a public relations representative for the ministry, explained the benefits of a gradual transition to a smoke-free campus.

“In regards to the step-by-step approach, public health is in favor of this approach, since it allows the support of students, teachers, and all staff,” Lacasse said. “[However] institutional policy should ideally be more comprehensive than just a ban on smoking, including the promotion of smoking cessation and non-smoking promotion services.”

The smoking ban will not be enforced along McTavish street as it is under the jurisdiction of Montreal’s municipal government. In an interview with the Tribune, Associate Vice-Principal Facilities Management and Ancillary Services Robert Couvrette, who has led much of the negotiations over the smoking policy, acknowledged the importance of the policy despite the difficulties it may pose.

“No-smoking rules are unfortunately difficult to enforce,” Couvrette said. “We must rely on the thoughtfulness, consideration, and cooperation of individuals.”

In addition, some students have raised concerns over how the new policy will affect those who smoke as a coping mechanism for stress and anxiety. SSMU Mental Health Commissioner Ebby Crowe explained that there can be a correlation between the two in an interview with the Tribune.

“If you’re pulling an all-nighter in the library, you’re already dealing with feelings of isolation, your stress is high because you’re in the middle of studying for exams, [and so] taking a smoke break […] offers you the opportunity to go outside, get away, [and get] the opportunity to interact with your peers,” Crowe said. “We may see an increase in students going to seek out counselling or psychiatric services [after the ban].”

However, Crowe maintained that, in the long-run, a gradually-implemented policy will be beneficial to students’ physical health and will soften the transition to a smoke-free campus.

“It’s going to frustrate a lot of students but long-term, the mental health and physical health benefits, I think, definitely outweigh the inconvenience,” Crowe said. “If we are promoting smoke free environments, eventually it is going to make it easier for students to quit.”

Off the Board, Opinion

Quebec safe injection sites need to catch up to fentanyl crisis

by Marie Labrosse on

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Since 2015, the fentanyl crisis has taken Canada by storm: The Public Health Agency of Canada estimated that over 4,000 Canadians lost their lives to opioid-related overdose in 2017. On Jan. 12, Dr. Carole Morissette, Montreal Public Health medical chief, delivered a public health warning to recreational drug users, signalling that the crisis had reached Quebec.

In the face of this newly-arrived public health emergency, Quebec needs to take action now to prevent the situation from taking the same nightmarish toll as in Western Canada. Currently, safe injection sites are not stocked with naloxone, the antidote to counter a fentanyl overdose. Naloxone can temporarily reverse a fentanyl overdose by slowing down the user’s absorption of the opioid by 30 to 60 minutes, allowing time for emergency medical help to arrive. It is the only treatment for an opioid overdose. Support staff at safe injection sites must rely on emergency response teams to provide such medication.

If harm reduction is truly a priority in the Canadian government’s strategy against drug and substance abuse, oversights at the provincial level such as this one are unacceptable. Provincial policy makers must correct any holes in the system that put drug users at risk.

Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than other opioids, such as morphine. This places its users at a high risk of an overdose; a dose the size of a grain of sand can be lethal. The lethal opioid is often found laced into other drugs, including counterfeit oxycodone pills and an increasing number of recreational drugs like cocaine, MDMA, and heroin. Consumers of street drugs, whether they are habitual or first-time users, have virtually no way of knowing that fentanyl’s been added: You can’t see it, smell it, or taste it. As the range of drugs that fentanyl contaminates increases, so does the scope of the population at risk of an overdose.

As of November 2017, naloxone is available at 1,900 pharmacies across Quebec to anyone over the age of 14—even without a prescription. As a part of Health Minister Gaétan Barrette and Public Health Minister Lucie Charlebois’s attempts to protect the province against the fentanyl crisis, police, firefighters, and ambulance crew are expected to carry naloxone kits on them at all times. Notably, the general public’s access to naloxone is only a very recent development in the response to the spread of the opioid crisis in Quebec.

Yet, these measures do little to protect those who are most at risk of a fentanyl overdose. More than 75 per cent of Montreal’s drug users regularly frequent community organization-run safe injection sites and needle exchanges to obtain their paraphernalia.

The system is failing these users by cowering behind the pretense that naloxone is widely available to anyone who needs it.

Shockingly, these institutions haven’t benefited from the wide distribution of naloxone kits like Quebec’s pharmacies have, despite Montreal Public Health’s expressed desire to equip any place where drug use might occur. Safe injection sites in British Columbia already benefit from their province’s wider distribution plan; Quebec should follow suit.

By rolling out naloxone in pharmacies and providing emergency response teams with the antidote, the Quebec public health system has merely done the bare minimum in combatting the fentanyl crisis. If drug users are at the same risk of a fatal fentanyl overdose when taking intravenous drugs at a safe injection site as anywhere else, they have less incentive to continue to use those spaces. Safe injection sites betray their primary purpose if they cannot guarantee drug users with protection against the ravages of the opioid crisis. The system is failing these users by cowering behind the pretense that naloxone is widely available to anyone who needs it.

Safe injection sites should be exactly what their name purports—safe. Public health services cannot wait for another onslaught of fatal drug overdoses caused by fentanyl to expand naloxone’s availability to those sites and finally make them safe again.

Marie is a U4 English student at McGill and Features Editor at the Tribune. Her spirit animal is a penguin.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]
McGill, News

Le James Bookstore to relocate to 680 Sherbrooke

by Delphine Polidori on

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McGill’s Le James Bookstore on avenue du Parc is scheduled to move its operations to its other location on Sherbrooke Street during the summer of 2018. Currently, the store on avenue du Parc sells textbooks and course materials while the one at 680 Sherbrooke sells more general merchandise such as apparel and accessories. But after buying the entirety of the office space at 680 Sherbrooke this past summer, McGill intends to renovate the Sherbrooke location and sell books there as well.

This is the second time the bookstore has changed its location in the past two years. In 2016, the store moved to its current location as a result of the university’s decision to use its former space at 3420 McTavish for the Desautels Faculty of Management Master of Business Administration Program, now called the Armstrong Building. Students’ opinions about this 2016 relocation have been mixed, according to Ashley Prodisteanu, U2 Education student and sales associate at the store on avenue du Parc for two years.

“We’ve gotten a lot of complaints about [the avenue du Parc store], saying that it’s too far,” Prodisteanu said. “I think that it’s a great idea that we’re moving since it will be more practical, especially being in the same location with the clothing store.”

The size constraints on avenue du Parc have caused excessive queuing during the textbook rushes at the start of every semester. According to Phillipe Saad, U2 Arts student, this has made the purchase of course materials a negative experience.

“It takes a while to get my books and I’ve always tried to avoid getting them the first week because it takes like an hour,” Saad said.

Now, as part of the upcoming relocation of the avenue du Parc bookstore, McGill will expand the 680 Sherbrooke location by connecting the bookstore to the floor below. The university hired a retail consulting firm to redesign the new space and plans to better accommodate the peak season by doubling the number of cash registers and creating more space to line up. The additional space will also be used to display more textbooks. Further, the bookstore plans to adapt to demand fluctuations over the course of the semester by providing more merchandise as students stop buying physical textbooks.

“What we want to make the new bookstore is a place where students actually want to go and where it feels like it’s part of the McGill community,” General Merchandise Manager Caroline Desroches said.

Desroches is optimistic about combining the stores in one central location.

“[The move] will also be good for the employees because they are going to form a team again,” Desroches said. “We’re going to have to evaluate [whether we need to employ more students] when we are there. Obviously, at rush and peak time, we need additional bodies.”

McGill aims to minimize disruption from the bookstore renovation on campus. Construction began on Feb. 12, with the 680 Sherbrooke bookstore closing for the next 19 weeks. In the meantime, it will be replaced by the smaller McGill Boutique, located on the same floor as the bookstore at 680 Sherbrooke. The boutique will make up for its small capacity by selling merchandise online as well as in store.

Meanwhile, the new bookstore will not affect any academic activities in 680 Sherbrooke, including the Ingram School of Nursing. The seasonal Le James Bookstore trailer will continue operating and will be marketed toward customers attending particular events on campus, such as graduation.

Aside from the new physical space of the store, Desroches explained that new products will be on display for the next school year. She recommended that students check Le James Bookstore’s social media for updates.

“We’re going to try some new brands that we haven’t tried before so I think everybody should keep a look out for that,” Desroches said. “We really have more flexibility with what we do now.”

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Cinema Politica shines light on the margins

by Andrea Kilajian, Sophie Brzozowski on

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Cinema Politica is a nonprofit network that collects and screens independent documentary films. Its weekly screenings embody the network’s slogan, “screening truth to power,” with films that show solidarity with oppressed voices who often go unheard in mainstream media. The McGill Tribune looks at two of their most recent films, examining stories not often told.

Memories of a Penitent Heart is a heart-wrenching portrait of intergenerational trauma

Sophie Brzozowski

Filmmaker and scholar Cecilia Aldarondo didn’t intend to unearth several decades worth of family conflict when, in 2012, she decided to investigate the life of her estranged uncle. Neither did she anticipate making a documentary that would one day qualify her as an activist. Cinema Politica screened Aldarondo’s 2016 debut film Memories of a Penitent Heart on Feb. 15 at the Maxwell Cummings Auditorium as a part of Concordia University’s annual lecture series on HIV/AIDS. The film follows Aldarondo as she uncovers the life of Miguel Dieppa, an uncle she never knew, who died of AIDS in 1987.

Part tragic love story, part redemptive quest for justice, Aldarondo’s film catalogues the two distinct yet equally-significant lives that Dieppa led. In one, he was a successful Broadway actor, a staple of the New York theater community, and a loving partner to monk-turned-bartender Robert Aquin. In the other, he was the devoted son of a pious Catholic family in Puerto Rico. Neither his partner nor his illness were mentioned in Dieppa’s obituary—even in death, his family refused to accept his sexuality.

“There was a narrative in my family around [Dieppa’s] death, particularly around the fact that he’d died on Easter Sunday,” Aldarondo said during a Q&A that followed the screening. “My grandmother would talk about how miraculous this was. She thought it was a sign, a really big sign.”

In many ways, the crux of Dieppa’s story occurs in the weeks leading up to his death when, at his mother’s request, he saw a priest and confessed to sins of homosexuality. Through a combination of interviews and archival footage, the film captures the torment Dieppa experienced in life: Being torn between two separate worlds and two separate value systems that seemed impossible to reconcile. The question of whether Dieppa’s confession was for himself or for his mother’s sake remains unanswered.

“The film doesn’t resolve this question. I don’t know whether he repented or not,” Aldarondo said. “We can all speculate, everyone around Miguel was speculating on his behalf, but ultimately, to me the bigger question is what did he need? [.…] He did what he needed to do to die in peace.”

Memories of a Penitent Heart is a film that examines the injustice and shame surrounding the AIDS crisis, told through the story of one family. It is a complex and personal documentary that examines the intersection of family, religion, and politics.

Although she considers herself “a recovering Catholic,” Aldarondo confessed that the process of making the film forced her to reconsider her own ideas about religion. Some of the documentary’s most moving scenes were centered on her encounters with Dieppa’s former partner, Robert Aquin, who returned to Catholicism after Dieppa’s death.  

“Some of my favourite [art inspired by the AIDS crisis] is some of the most blasphemous and angry at the Church,” Aldarondo said. “But I think we have this secularization around the narrative of AIDS, and the way in which we talk about this notion that religion was only ever bad for queer people […] the process [of making the film] forced me to see things in a more nuanced way, and if that makes me a little softer and weaker, then I’m ok with that.”

Though Aldarondo was careful never to excuse her family’s intolerance, she made sure to depict it in all its complexity, acknowledging that it was the product of a generational divide and uncompromising faith.

While only 72 minutes in length, Aldarondo’s documentary manages to capture multiple generations worth of pain and grief. Memories of a Penitent Heart is a film about the importance of forgiving without forgetting. It’s also about the eternally-grey area that is the intersection of sexuality and religion, and how it is in many ways futile to fully reconcile the two, but decidedly more important to try.

Complicit investigates the human cost of modern technology

Andrea Kilajian

Complicit, directed by Lynn Zhang and Heather White, had its Montreal premiere with Cinema Politica on Feb. 5.  The documentary focuses on the dangerous conditions factory workers face in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, China, featuring footage shot over the last three years.  

Working in extremely arduous conditions, the electronics factory workers repeat the same task thousands of times a day. During their 13-hour shifts, workers are exposed to benzene—a chemical waste product with cancerous effects. Because of this exposure, many of the workers develop leukemia, with this health crisis only growing.

Complicit follows the story of many migrant workers of different ages who are victims of benzene exposure. Many of the victims are under the age of 30, and live in fear and anxiety.

Shang Jiouajioua is one of the 12 million Chinese teenagers who have left home to find work. Finding solace with other youth fighting the same cancer, Jiouajioua and her friends are afraid of burdening their families with their conditions, and come together to fight against the global electronics industry.

“When I wasn’t sleeping or eating, I would be wiping something,” Shang Jiouajioua said in one interview with the filmmakers. “It was the only thing I did. There was no ventilation or windows.”

To assemble products like the iPhone, Apple deals with Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer. Despite employing 1.3 million workers in 2015, Foxconn factories exhibit an extreme lack of safety measures and horrible working conditions.

“It’s because of Apple that I am dying,” Ming Kunpeng, a 26-year-old leukemia patient and former factory worker, said.

Yi Yeting is a victim of this poisoning himself and has dedicated much of his life to a movement against harmful working conditions. Although he was barred from leaving China because of this “controversial” plea for basic human rights, he was able to raise  awareness of the dangers of benzene exposure from his hospital bed by speaking at a human rights conference in the United States via Skype.

“I don’t want my children to be sick because of working conditions I had,” Yi Yeting said.

His main objective is to establish stricter constraints in Foxconn’s contracts with its clients, emphasizing the necessity of bans on benzene and n-hexane, another dangerous chemical prevalent in factories.

According to Chinese government officials, one person is poisoned by toxic chemicals, notably benzene, every five hours; however, experts say that the frequency is higher. In 2010, there were 14 reported suicides in the electronics manufacturing industry, revealing Foxconn’s overbearing psychological and physical impacts on its workers.

Complicit sheds light on the dangerous world Chinese factory workers step into every day. It provides an insider look on how to fight against the use of benzene.

Private, Science & Technology

The quickest way to someone’s heart is through your wallet

by Grace Hu on

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As society progresses, our definitions of love have broadened and blurred into a kaleidoscope of facts and figures. Nowadays, a human can love a human, an animal can love an animal, a human can love an animal, an animal can love a 2-D character—the list goes on and on. Obviously, there is also a growing variety of ways to express love. But what do these acts of love mean, and why do we do them?

Valentine’s Day—the very embodiment of commercialized romance—has companies leaping at the chance to encourage consumers to purchase gifts for their loved ones. Gifting, however, has a biological significance. While some consider these celebrations a superficial insult, rites of gift giving and receiving may in fact have an evolutionary lineage. Professor Gad Saad, research chair in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences at Concordia University, explained that gift giving is ingrained in our biological blueprint.

“When you have sexually reproducing species, each sex looks for certain attributes in the opposite sex for specific evolutionary reasons,” Saad said. “The male typically will engage in what’s called nuptial gift giving. The idea in the human context is to demonstrate cues of generosity, of investment, of concern, […] cues that are attractive to the opposite sex.”

Nuptial gift giving, which in the animal kingdom refers to the act of males giving tokens or food items to females as part of their courtship ritual, is most prevalent among insects and birds. Its role in the evolution of courtship rituals is a hot research topic for many biologists.

However, some researchers believe that the gifts given on Valentine’s Day are a separate idea from giving nuptial gifts. According to Simon Reader, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Biology, genetic evolution has very little to say about the origins of Valentine’s Day rituals, which are almost entirely the result of cultural evolution.

“There are examples [that] look like gift giving in non-human animals, including many insects,” Reader wrote to The McGill Tribune in an email. “In these species, individuals that provide gifts tend to be more likely to mate successfully. However, I am doubtful whether these behaviours in animals say anything useful for understanding human gift giving or Valentine’s Day.”

Nowadays, ‘advertisements’ and ‘consumerism’ are words that are almost synonymous with Western culture, especially when these ads relate to romance. De Beers Jewellers notably capitalized on the power of advertising in the 1930s, when their ad campaign invented the tradition of diamond wedding rings and gave the gem new cultural significance.

Yet despite how capitalism has played its hand in the game of artificial love, Saad explained that the very act of giving gifts remains a primal instinct cultivated by sexual selection. Although the gifts themselves may change, the desires that motivate this ritual of courtship remain true to nature. According to the National Retail Federation, in the U.S., people spend upwards of $19.6 billion on Valentine’s Day alone.

“It’s not the specific chocolate or flowers or diamond rings that’s evolutionary,” Saad noted. “That’s modern culture. And that’s what Valentine’s Day is—it’s an opportunity to reaffirm the fact that ‘I am attentive enough to go out, spend my time, spend my money, demonstrating to you that I care about you and want to invest in you.’ And that’s something that’s really desirable in terms of human courtship.”

McGill, News, SSMU

Report on anti-Semitism discussed at Board of Governors meeting

by Andras Nemeth on

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The McGill Board of Governors (BoG) convened on Feb. 15 to discuss the University’s report on allegations of anti-Semitism, the new Vision 2020 Climate and Sustainability Action Plan, the new Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR) terms of reference, and budget affairs. Two hours of the BoG’s three-hour meeting were made open to the McGill community and press. Other topics discussed during the open community session included the national and international rankings of McGill’s schools and faculties and concerns regarding McGill’s rate of tenure and tenure-track hiring.

 

BoG affirms stance on report on anti-Semitism

Most of the BoG’s conversation regarding former ombudsperson Spencer Boudreau’s report on allegations of anti-Semitism at the Student Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Fall General Assembly occured during the board’s private session. However, during the community session, members of the BoG, including Principal Suzanne Fortier, reaffirmed their support for Boudreau’s conclusion that allegations of anti-Semitism were unfounded but understandable given the divisiveness of campus discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Derek Nystrom, associate professor of Cultural Studies and BoG member, said the events which preceded the investigation contributed to broader concerns about political discourse on campus.

“It is important to treat these allegations [of anti-Semitism] seriously,” Nystrom said. “I also believe that genuine political differences should be vented as freely as possible.”

 

Presentation on Vision 2020

François Miller, manager of the McGill Office of Sustainability, delivered a report on the Vision 2020 Climate and Sustainability Action Plan announced on Nov. 28, 2017. Under Vision 2020, McGill plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040 and earn a Platinum Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System Rating by 2030.

In his presentation, Miller outlined concrete steps McGill intends to take to reduce its carbon footprint in the coming decades. Among the most important of these is improving sustainability-related Key Performance Indicator (KPI) metrics and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.

“In order to have increased accountability and transparency, we will report to the Board of Governors our sustainability ratings every three to four years,” Miller said. “Our greenhouse gas emissions will be provided on an annual basis to the board, and one of the KPIs is the level of implementation of the actions embedded in this action plan.”

 

CAMSR changes postponed

Representatives from Divest McGill, a student organization that advocates against McGill’s investment in fossil fuel companies, were present at the BoG meeting in anticipation of continued discussion on proposed changes to the CAMSR Terms of Reference that began in December 2017.

Divest McGill submitted two questions to be answered at the community session. The first concerned the definition of ‘social and political causes’ in which the proposed CAMSR terms of reference would prohibit university investment. The second concerned the extension of the period for reviewing the terms of reference from three to five years. According to Annabelle Couture-Guillet, U2 Environment student and member of Divest McGill, the extension of the review period threatens on-campus activism.

“The review of the terms of reference can affect processes that regulate not only divestment issues but anything related to social responsibility at McGill,” Couture-Guillet said. “The fact that we typically do our degrees in three to four years is a constraint. Reviewing the terms every five years would mean not [every student] is getting the chance to engage with the process.”

However, the BoG refused to answer any questions related to the CAMSR Terms of Reference, deferring them to the CAMSR meeting on Feb. 20. A Dec. 12 meeting of the BoG was adjourned early following protest by Divest McGill.

A vote on the proposed changes, initially scheduled for the Feb. 15 meeting, was postponed to the Board’s next meeting on April 26.

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