As it is accepted in both international organizations and nation states, housing for the urban poor is an urgent issue which cannot be left exclusively to market mechanisms. It is accepted that nation states have primary duties towards providing affordable houses for the lower income groups. This project reveals the changing role and structure of the state toward housing policies for urban poor with reference to shifts in development strategies in the Turkish context.

The research will examine the way in which marginalized communities are able to negotiate access to essential conditions of life such as water and housing. Infrastructure development and consumption patterns have failed to adapt to rapid economic growth and urban expansion. This has created an inequitable rift between social groups, with marginalized groups such as migrant and informal workers having more difficult access to essential services.

The proposed research project will examine the relationship between firms and the culture of lawfulness of the environment in which they are embedded. Specifically, the societal and cultural features that undermine the rule of law by promoting the normalcy of rule-breaking will be studied in terms of both how firms understand and are affected by them.

Although latent variable models are a well-known tool for evaluating a portfolio credit risk, concerns are raised regarding tractability of a subsequent analysis/simulation. The project attempts to address such concerns by incorporating a special class of Bernoulli mixture models. Then, efforts will be made to compare efficiency of these models with the commonly used latent variable counterparts and the benchmark model suggested by the regulator.

How can public legal education and information help Canadians get justice in our legal system? With the demand for publicly-funded or low-cost legal services far exceeding the supply, public legal education and information (PLEI) is filling an increasingly larger role in meeting the legal needs of people with modest means. Yet we know relatively little about how PLEI can help people deal with their legal problems. examines the effectiveness of PLEI in helping low- and modest-income people address their legal problems.

The therapeutic effect of a vaccine depends on its chemical composition, and in particular the integrity of its protein components. Conditions under which a vaccine is manufactured and stored can damage the proteins it contains; however, since proteins are structurally complex and reactive, their degradation during routine handling is unpredictable. In the project described here, three candidate vaccine products will be subjected to models of manufacture and storage in order to induce chemical changes within them in a controlled manner.

The research project intends to test various aspects of data collection using a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) in order to assess the suitability for small sites (~1 ha). Ideal conditions for UAV based mapping will be determined and compared to other traditional methods. To identify suitable conditions, the relationship between accuracy and several factors (the flying height, observational angle) will be assessed as well as limitations such as the effect of wind and distance to target. Various software will be utilized to address the accuracy of image stitching.

Much of the world's high-quality data remains under lock in relational databases. Access is gained through relational query languages. This can suffice for people who are well versed in both SQL and in the schemas of databases. However, anyone who does not know SQL or who is not well versed in the schema is effectively locked out. Keyword search over relational databases was proposed a decade ago to offer an alternative way to query a database. While the general approach has merit, many refinements are needed, before it can be an effective product.

Pertussis, caused by the strict human pathogen B. pertussis or Bordetella parapertussis, is a highly contagious, potentially life-threatening respiratory tract illness when it occurs in unprotected infants. Despite the introduction of acellular pertussis (aP) vaccines and great initial success of the immunization program, pertussis outbreaks were reported in adolescents and adults in Canada since 1993. This trend was demonstrated as shift in pertussis epidemiology from infants and young children.