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French law 2004-228 and Quebec's Bill 21 has prohibited wearing conspicuous religious symbols while discharging public duty, especially as teachers in public school. This has aroused robust public debate because it disproportionately affects Muslim women wearing hijabs. This paper investigates the philosophical/ethical argument on both sides of the debate. The key research question is whether liberal feminists have the justification to support the hijab ban. The paper outlines different types of liberal feminism and their views on just social arrangements. The paper uses Gheaus's concept of gender justice and Kabeer's definition of gender empowerment to structure the debate, stating that feminists will support the ban if it enhances empowerment and makes society more gender-just or internal working of social arrangements, at least procedurally just. The paper draws on the utilitarian argument, Nussbaum's and Sen's articulation of the Capability Approach and the importance of identity, and Bourdieu's concept of Habitus, Doxa, and Symbolic Violence. The paper argues that there are strong arguments on both sides. Still, liberal feminists concerned about structural inequalities, economic empowerment, and individual freedom may not be convinced that the Hijab ban makes society more gender-just or improves individual empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2019, Québec passed Bill 21, entitled: 'An Act respecting the laicity of the State'. This bill bans public servants from wearing religious symbols in the workplace. Among the affected employees are judges, teachers, and government officers. This paper considers the ethical ramifications of Bill 21 on education. Particularly, this paper examines some prime arguments for and against abridging religious rights for teachers and public servants. Then, the paper explicates the immanent tension between the desire to advance tolerance and the exercise of intolerant practices against minorities. In this sense, the case of Bill 21 exemplifies the fragility of tolerance. Drawing from Dewey's pragmatic understanding and agonistic models of democracy, the concluding section of this paper argues for the development of a more inclusive understanding of tolerance that will offer students educational experience and encourage them to constantly consider their predispositions and biases towards the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the impact of model resolution and structure on the performance of Model Predictive Control (MPC) implementation in an unoccupied research house in Québec equipped with smart thermostats. Two low-order models and a high-order multi-zone model were calibrated with measured data, with the structure of the multi-zone model being generated automatically during the calibration procedure. The three models were used to apply real-time MPC to an experimental house in Québec using the established dynamic tariffs for morning and evening peaks. MPC with any of the three models successfully preheated the house before the demand-response events, outperforming the reference reactive controller, reducing cost and thermal discomfort. The high-order multi-zone model performed the best, reducing average cost of electricity by 55% and high-price energy consumption by 71%, compared to the low-order models, which achieved cost reductions of 40% and 44% and energy consumption reductions of 48% and 54% respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, the Government of Québec, Canada announced an ambitious twenty-five-year plan to develop the province's northern region—an area nearly twice the size of France. A centrepiece of the Plan Nord is to integrate the province's various Indigenous peoples in the sustainable development of the region. However, there are early warning signs of the potential for future conflict as some Indigenous groups mobilized opposition against proposed developments. This raises important questions: could the plan enhance prospects for improved cooperation between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous groups or is it likely to engender conflict? Which factors explain the diverging levels of support for the plan between the region's principal Indigenous peoples (i.e. Cree, Inuit, Innu)? The paper uses the 'sons of the soil' (SoS) conflict framework to theorize the mechanisms that can give rise to—or prevent the escalation of—Indigenous and non-Indigenous conflict in northern Québec. Though typically applied to case studies in the Global South, the SoS conflict framework provides a novel approach for understanding the contentious politics surrounding land, territory, and natural resource development in settler-colonial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lysimetry has been acknowledged in the literature as the most effective means of assessing deep percolation rates through landfill final covers. Designing lysimeters requires several tools, including thorough laboratory testing and numerical modelling. This paper focuses on a fundamental boundary condition, namely breakthrough suction, and how it affects lysimeter design. This study was triggered by a multi-year database of suction and seepage data collected from a large-scale lysimeter constructed at the St-Nicephore landfill, Quebec, Canada. Tensiometers were installed at several levels near and at the interface between the cover material and the drainage layer inside the lysimeter, and outflow was measured using tipping counters. Based on field results and an analysis thereof, different geometry scenarios were simulated with HYDRUS-2D, and it was observed that in lysimeters designed using the linear method, breakthrough suction at the lower boundary can result in a greater than 90% percolation performance. With climate change, lysimeter percolation rate estimates may also be affected by rainfall events of varying magnitudes. Lastly, we were able to assess the existing design procedures and suggest a simple and conservative approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper aims to empirically explore the strengths and skills among public housing tenants as well as the opportunities offered by their environment to use them. In Québec (Canada), 310 participants took part in interviews including open and closed-ended questions about their strengths and skills. Public housing tenants indicated possessing a diversity of strengths and skills. Although participants hinted toward a positive influence of their environment, they quantitatively evaluated the available opportunities to use their strengths and skills as moderately satisfying. The findings suggest a need for interventions specifically tailored to low-income populations such as public housing tenants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural streamflow data is required in many hydrological applications. However, many basins are located in data-scarce regions or are impacted by human construction and activities. In this paper, we explore three machine learning algorithms, namely artificial neural networks, random forest and light gradient boosting machine, to simultaneously estimate all the parameters of the coupled modèle du Génie Rural à 4 paramètres Journaliers (GR4J) and snow accounting routine called CemaNeige model. A database of 675 basins in the USA and Quebec is used to train and test ensembles. After using the estimated parameters in GR4J, the resulting naturalized streamflow series are compared with those obtained by the established drainage area ratio and spatial proximity transfer methods in 11 test basins. The results indicate that the machine learning algorithms outperform the drainage area ratio and spatial proximity transfer methods. Among machine learning algorithms, random forests obtain lower (better) continuous ranked probability scores than the other methods for 10 out of 11 test basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local development, especially in outlying or declining regions, is a perennial issue. "Neolocalism," a combined marketing and community-building approach, draws upon and strengthens local identity and culture to create unique products, to bolster tourism and place branding, but also as ends in themselves. Craft breweries are often associated with neolocalism. In this paper, which focuses on peripheral regions of Québec, we first explore how brewers perceive their connection with local areas: whilst marketing is part of the story, local development and community revitalization are also important to them. We then assess the degree to which local development aspirations are reflected at a wide scale, using a quantitative approach. Whilst there is evidence that local breweries in peripheral areas are associated with a wider tourist economy—comprising hospitality and cultural sectors—there is no evidence that breweries are associated with higher incomes or economic vitality. This contrasts with regions closer to metropolitan areas, where there is less evidence of local tourist economies in the vicinity of craft breweries, but where breweries tend to locate in more prosperous and economically dynamic areas, likely for reasons of market access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the examples of Versailles, a series co-produced by Capa Drama with the Quebec company Incendo and Zodiak Fiction for Canal+, and No Man's Land, a Franco-Belgian-Israeli co-production produced for Arte France and the US platform Hulu, this article aims to compare two different dimensions of the globalisation of the series market and the integration of French producers and broadcasters into this new transnational creative ecosystem. The challenge for the production of Versailles was to bring the French heritage series up to the standards of the English-speaking world while promoting French producers' financial and artistic creativity in launching series with distinctive stories onto a global market. For No Man's Land, however, the challenge was to produce a cosmopolitan series, featuring several cultural areas and a multilingual cast. Whether in terms of the broadcasters' globalisation strategy or in terms of the creative or even cross-cultural challenges raised by the production process, both experiences are representative of the way series are emerging today as a laboratory of audiovisual 'glocalisation'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on sub-state diplomacy has revealed that identity entrepreneurs representing minority nations like Quebec engage in foreign affairs, normally defined as identity paradiplomacy. This article argues that the concepts of the identity entrepreneur and of identity paradiplomacy should be broadened to refer to any sub-state decision-maker, not only those representing minority nations, that disseminates identity or nationalist ideas in engagements with foreign actors. The reconceptualization advances scholarship by incorporating a more diverse array of types of identity paradiplomacy and refines our understanding of both the causes and the consequences of nationalist-driven paradiplomacy. As an empirical illustration of this proposition, the article offers a case study of the diplomatic affairs of Romania's sub-state governments toward the Republic of Moldova, which were dominated by nationalist narratives shared by central authorities and included no references to regional identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) increases, so does the need for teacher training about inclusive education. We adapted an online training to provide pre-service teachers with strategies to integrate students with ASD into the classroom and evaluated it in two culturally diverse contexts. Students majoring in Education from the United States (Georgia; n = 84) and Canada (Québec; n = 117) completed the training and filled out pre- and post-training questionnaires. Initial attitudes toward inclusion were significantly more positive in Georgia than Québec. Participation in the training was associated with improved attitudes towards inclusion across both contexts and with improved ASD teaching self-efficacy and knowledge in Québec. Increased self-efficacy in Georgia was associated with a social desirability bias. This study demonstrates that a brief online training can promote positive attitudes toward inclusion across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]