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Reports that Kruger Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, had a smooth start-up of its Paper Machine Number 4 at its Wayagamack mill in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, on November 1, 2003.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is characterized as compact, mixed-use, and pedestrian-friendly development around transit stations, aiming to balance land use and transportation, enhance sustainability, and improve public transport accessibility. There are various TOD assessment methods; each target one of these goals. This paper proposes a comprehensive approach that addresses TOD goals in a multistage assessment. In the first stage, we identify station areas' typology using weighted node, place, and tie indices based on the correlation between land use and transportation. Then, feasible station areas for enhancing density and diversity are selected using a canonical score. In the second stage, station areas' typology is defined by sustainability criteria and a TOD index. Then, the efficiency of selected station areas for compactness is assessed using Data Envelopment Analysis. Finally, public transport accessibility is optimized for these stations in the third stage. We investigate the effects of weighting indicators of the node–place model in the first stage and aggregation methods in the second stage. We conduct a feasibility and efficiency assessment for the typology of station areas in Metro Montreal. This study attempts to advocate a holistic perspective for TOD assessment with a case study implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how the City of Montréal employed tools of urban planning—including a district plan, street redesign, rezoning, selective public consultation, expropriation, policing and surveillance—to spatially banish sex work from its historic district, using the red light symbol as a branding strategy. This coincided with a change in federal law (Bill C-36) and a policy shift to reposition sex workers as passive victims of sex trafficking. Using a case study design, this work explores the state's refusal to recognize the agency of those engaged in embodied socio-economic exchanges and the safety and solidarity possible in public space. In interviews, sex workers described strategies of collective organizing, resistance and protest to hold the city accountable during this process of displacement. We consider how urban planning might support sex work, sex workers and economic autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental stress is becoming increasingly widespread and gradually severe in modern society, threatening people’s physical and mental health. To avoid the adverse effects of stress on people, it is imperative to detect stress in time. Many studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of using objective indicators to detect stress. Over the past few years, a growing number of researchers have been trying to use deep learning technology to detect stress. However, these works usually use single-modality for stress detection and rarely combine stress-related information from multimodality. In this paper, a real-time deep learning framework is proposed to fuse ECG, voice, and facial expressions for acute stress detection. The framework extracts the stress-related information of the corresponding input through ResNet50 and I3D with the temporal attention module (TAM), where TAM can highlight the distinguishing temporal representation for facial expressions about stress. The matrix eigenvector-based approach is then used to fuse the multimodality information about stress. To validate the effectiveness of the framework, a well-established psychological experiment, the Montreal imaging stress task (MIST), was applied in this work. We collected multimodality data from 20 participants during MIST. The results demonstrate that the framework can combine stress-related information from multimodality to achieve 85.1% accuracy in distinguishing acute stress. It can serve as a tool for computer-aided stress detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2012, a former research assistant contacted the Montréal police about an interview he had conducted with Luka Magnotta for the SSHRC-funded research project Sex Work and Intimacy: Escorts and their Clients four years previously. That call ultimately resulted in the Parent and Bruckert v R and Magnotta case. Now, a decade later, we are positioned to reflect on the collective lessons learned (and lost) from the case. In this paper, we provide a lay of the Canadian confidentiality landscape before teasing out ten lessons from Parent c R. To do so, we draw on personal archives, survey results from sixty researchers, twelve key informant interviews with qualitative sociolegal and criminology researchers, and documentary analysis of university research policies. The lessons, which range from the clichéd, to the practical, to the frustrating, have implications for the individual work of Canadian researchers and for the collective work of academic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Learning & Technology is the property of Canadian Network for Innovation in Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Elimination of intra-artifacts in EEG has been overlooked in most of the existing sleep staging systems, especially in deep learning-based approaches. Whether intra-artifacts, originated from the eye movement, chin muscle firing, or heart beating, etc., in EEG signals would lead to a positive or a negative masking effect on deep learning-based sleep staging systems was investigated in this paper. We systematically analyzed several traditional pre-processing methods involving fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA), Information Maximization (Infomax), and Second-order Blind Source Separation (SOBI). On top of these methods, a SOBI-WT method based on the joint use of the SOBI and Wavelet Transform (WT) is proposed. It offered an effective solution for suppressing artifact components while retaining residual informative data. To provide a comprehensive comparative analysis, these pre-processing methods were applied to eliminate the intra-artifacts and the processed signals were fed to two ready-to-use deep learning models, namely two-step hierarchical neural network (THNN) and SimpleSleepNet for automatic sleep staging. The evaluation was performed on two widely used public datasets, Montreal Archive of Sleep Studies (MASS) and Sleep-EDF Expanded, and a clinical dataset that was collected in Huashan Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China (HSFU). The proposed SOBI-WT method increased the accuracy from 79.0% to 81.3% on MASS, 83.3% to 85.7% on Sleep-EDF Expanded, and 75.5% to 77.1% on HSFU compared with the raw EEG signal, respectively. Experimental results demonstrate that the intra-artifacts bring out a masking negative impact on the deep learning-based sleep staging systems and the proposed SOBI-WT method has the best performance in diminishing this negative impact compared with other artifact elimination methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Jewish Studies / Études Juives Canadiennes is the property of Association for Canadian Jewish Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose To explore safe delays for the treatment of common paediatric orthopaedic conditions when faced with a life-threatening pandemic, COVID-19, and to propose a categorization system to address this question. Methods Review of the literature related to acceptable delays for treatment of common orthopaedic conditions, experience of healthcare professionals from low resource communities and expertise of experienced surgeons. Results Guidelines for the management of cancellations of elective surgeries during a period of resource reallocation are proposed. Elective cases must not be postponed indefinitely as adverse outcomes may result. Triage of waiting lists should include continuous monitoring of the patient and close communication with families despite social distancing and travel restrictions. Telehealth becomes a necessity. Common orthopaedic conditions are triaged into four groups according to urgency and safe and acceptable delay. Categories proposed are Emergent (life and limb threatening conditions), Urgent (within seven days), Semi-elective (postponed for three months) and Elective (postponed for three to 12 months). In total, 25 common orthopaedic conditions are reviewed and categorized. Conclusion Given the uncertainty within healthcare during a pandemic, it is necessary to determine acceptable delays for elective conditions. We report our experience in developing guidelines and propose categorizing elective cases into four categories, based on the length of delay. Telemedicine plays a key role in determining the gravity of each situation and hence the amount of delay. These guidelines will assist others dealing with elective cases in the midst of a crisis. This paper initiates a coordinated effort to develop a consensus statement on safe delays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While discourses of peace abound in cultural, youth and EDMC studies, notably in relation to concepts like communitas, the dominant moral and modern conceptions of peace and conflict appear limited to tackling the inevitable conflict dynamics inside parties and around the vibe as a peak experience. Inspired by contemporary peace studies, Peter Sloterdijk's psychopolitical-morphological argument known as spherology and participation in Montreal's psytrance scenes, this paper offers an alternative understanding of productive conflicts at work in the vibe and outside of it. At the end, this paper seeks to offer observers and practitioners means to discuss the various peace-conflict dynamics nascent on dance floors with effects on global cultural formations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2008 financial crisis, federal and provincial governments in Canada has consistently monitored its housing market. However, real estate markets in Canada seem to have significant regional imbalances with moderate evidence of overheating and price exuberance and strong evidence of over-evaluation for several quarters. In this perspective, this paper seeks to test the existence of real estate bubbles in Canada and their contagion. Our methodology, based on monthly data, relies on two steps: First, we build on a GSADF test developed by Phillips, Shi, and Yu (2015) to detect bubbles. Second, using a method developed by Greenaway-McGrevy and Phillips (2016), a non-parametric regression with time-varying coefficient, we verify if, in case of bubbles, there is a contagion among Canadian cities. Our results suggest that there are bubbles in the real estate markets of Toronto and Vancouver, while this is not the case for Montreal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on a ratification of a new three-year contract between Norampac Inc. and Independent Paperworker's Union in Montreal, Quebec.

Reports that Montreal, Quebec-based Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. will sell its share of SFK Pulp Fund. Number of fund units that SFK will issue.

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. To properly assess the increased economical risk of these events, actuaries can gain in relying on expert models/opinions from multiple different sources, which requires the use of model combination techniques. From non-parametric to Bayesian approaches, different methods rely on varying assumptions potentially leading to very different results. In this paper, we apply multiple model combination methods to an ensemble of 24 experts in a pooling approach and use the differences in outputs from the different combinations to illustrate how one can gain additional insight from using multiple methods. The densities obtained from pooling in Montreal and Quebec City highlight the significant changes in higher quantiles obtained through different combination approaches. Areal reduction factor and quantile projected changes are used to show that consistency, or lack thereof, across approaches reflects the uncertainty of combination methods. This shows how an actuary using multiple expert models should consider more than one combination method to properly assess the impact of climate change on loss distributions, seeing as a single method can lead to overconfidence in projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utility-based shortfall risk measure (SR) has received increasing attentions over the past few years. Recently Delage et al. [Shortfall Risk Models When Information of Loss Function Is Incomplete, GERAD HEC, Montréal, 2018] consider a situation where a decision maker's true loss function in the definition of SR is unknown but it is possible to elicit a set of plausible utility functions with partial information and consequently propose a robust formulation of SR based on the worst-case utility function. In this paper, we extend this new stream of research to a multi-attribute prospect space since multi-attribute decision-making problems are ubiquitous in practical applications. Specifically, we introduce a preference robust multivariate utility-based shortfall risk measure (PRMSR) and demonstrate that it is law invariant and convex. We then apply the PRMSR to an optimal decision-making problem where the objective is to minimize the PRMSR of a vector-valued cost function and propose some numerical scheme for solving the resulting optimization problem in the case when the underlying exogenous uncertainty is finitely distributed. Finally, we discuss statistical robustness of the PRMSR based optimization model by examining qualitative stability of the estimator of the optimal value obtained with potentially contaminated data. A case study is carried out to examine the performance of the proposed robust model and numerical scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on the 1993 international conference and trade exhibition of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) held in Montreal, Quebec is presented. The conference was participated by nearly 1000 members and guests, honoring the 1993 recipients of the Olney Medal, the Harold C. Chapin Award and the Henry E. Millson Award for Invention. The symposium featured several industry leaders including Nick J. Christie, George S. Wham and Warren S. Perkins.

Summarizes the proceeding of conferences and meetings of the International Federation of Library Associations & Institutions (IFLA) in Montreal, Quebec, from August 22-28, 1982. Meetings of the IFLA Art Section; Papers on art librarianship discussed; Business meetings of the IFLA Art Section.

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Waterfront redevelopment is one of the main categories of urban project in major cities since the 1980s. However, waterfronts are faced with issues of fragmented land ownership and a lack of integration with other central neighbourhoods. Using Montreal's waterfront as a case study, this paper shows how the governance framework of urban design may undermine their integration. The observation of user behaviour within public spaces offers a new perspective for the redesign of these links between neighbourhoods, and seeks to contribute to a vision of waterfront precincts beyond the limits imposed by administrative constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cahiers Franco-Canadiens De L'Ouest is the property of Presses Universitaires de Saint-Boniface and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Audits conducted on medical records have been traditionally used in hospitals to assess and improve quality of medical care but have yet to be properly integrated and used for suicide prevention purposes. We aimed to (1) revise a quality of care grid and adapt it to an adult population of suicide attempters and (2) identify quality of care deficits in managing adult suicide attempters at the emergency department (ED) in two different Montreal university hospitals. An existing checklist for quality of medical and social care in the ED was adapted. A systematic search and data extraction of all suicide attempters in two different Montreal university hospitals were then conducted. All identified individuals who attempted suicide were fully reviewed and quality of care was assessed. Eleven criteria were kept by the expert focus group in the revised grid that was then used to rate 369 individuals that attempted suicide. Suicide risk assessment was only present in 63% of attempters before discharge. Although family history was documented for 90% of attempters, in only 41% of the cases were interviews conducted with relatives. Most discharged patient lacked proper follow-up considering 11% of their relatives received written information on resources in case of need. Paper records may be used to systematically assess the quality of care for suicide attempters seen in ED. Results reiterate the need for better suicide prevention strategies for these individuals. The checklist proved to be an excellent assessment of best practices or identification of possible improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the 2012 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dialectric Phenomena to be held in Montréal, Québec on October 14-17, 2012.

This is a lightly edited transcript of a plenary talk given at the Beyond Positivism conference, Montreal, August 8–10 2017. The talk followed others by Christopher Winship and Frédéric Vandenberghe, which are mentioned in the text. The paper argues that critical social science needs an ontology of values, and that a coherent ontology must recognize that values are created by human beings in social settings, rather than being objectively true. Recognizing this, however, need not expose us to the moral nihilism of extreme relativism. Drawing on the work of Habermas and the capabilities approach, I argue that we can reason about what sorts of basic values we should be committed to, without invoking the concept of objective values. This provides us with material that we can build on to construct more complex constructive critical arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This decade is witnessing the proliferation of large-scale population-based biobanks. Many biobanks have reached the stage of offering access to their collection of data and samples to the scientific community. This, however, requires that access arrangements be established to govern the relationship between biobanks and users. Access arrangements capture the convergence of all normative elements in the life cycle of a biobank: policies, laws, common practices, commitments made by the biobank to participants, the expectations of funders, and the needs of the scientific community. Furthermore, access arrangements shape new legal agreements between 'biobankers' and researchers to ensure appropriate, regulated and efficient use of biobank materials. This paper begins by examining the particularities of access arrangements, identifying the key elements of these new regulatory instruments. Second, the paper looks at various strategies used by biobanks to regulate access and surveys the underlying motivations of these strategies and the impact they can have on potential international collaboration. Third, an example of the challenges encountered in creating access policy is illustrated using the case of CARTaGENE, a biobank based in Montreal, Canada. Last, the paper presents how Public Population Project in Genomics (P3G) facilitates the work of biobankers and improves collaboration throughout the international human genomics research community. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leakage of water distribution networks is the most common reason of undesirable losses of potable water. Problems associated with water main leaks pose growing concern around the globe. These problems include water and energy loss, in addition to the risk it poses to structural damage of adjacent properties. In current practice, not all water leaks can be detected in a timely and cost effective manner. This paper presents a study conducted for detection of water leaks in underground pipelines, and identification of their respective locations using thermography infrared camera. The paper describes the field work and the experimental protocol which were carried out over 2 years in three different locations in greater Montréal (Canada) area in order to investigate factors that affect the applicability and limitations of using IR camera in water leak detection. These factors beyond those studied in previous work carried out by American Water Works Association and National Research Council. The paper presents a model developed to determine approximate location of leaks in water mains. The developed model was then applied successfully to detect and locate leaks in water mains in fall and spring seasons. It failed, however, to detect leaks in the summer and winter due to high pavement temperature and the snow coverage, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the certification of Abitbi-Consolidated Inc.'s Quebec-West Woodlands Division and Champneuf Sawmill by the Canadian Standards Association in Montreal, Quebec.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various topics within the issue including metro rail in Montreal, Canada, transport history and motor clubs in Argentina.

Presents an abstract of a research paper entitled `The Bargaining Position of Married Women: Evidence From Montreal Marriage Contracts in the 1820s and 1840s,' by Gillian Hamilton, presented at the annual meeting of the Economic History Association.

Editorial. Introduces a series of articles presented at the 14th Annual Conference of the International Input-Output Association held at Montreal, Quebec in October 2002. Information on winners of the best conference paper.

The aim of present paper is to identify clinical phenotypes in a cohort of patients affected of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Ninety-one patients and 22 healthy controls were studied with the following questionnaires, in addition to medical history: visual analogical scale for fatigue and pain, DePaul questionnaire (post-exertional malaise, immune, neuroendocrine), Pittsburgh sleep quality index, COMPASS-31 (dysautonomia), Montreal cognitive assessment, Toulouse-Piéron test (attention), Hospital Anxiety and Depression test and Karnofsky scale. Co-morbidities and drugs-intake were also recorded. A hierarchical clustering with clinical results was performed. Final study group was made up of 84 patients, mean age 44.41 ± 9.37 years (66 female/18 male) and 22 controls, mean age 45 ± 13.15 years (14 female/8 male). Patients meet diagnostic criteria of Fukuda-1994 and Carruthers-2011. Clustering analysis identify five phenotypes. Two groups without fibromyalgia were differentiated by various levels of anxiety and depression (13 and 20 patients). The other three groups present fibromyalgia plus a patient without it, but with high scores in pain scale, they were segregated by prevalence of dysautonomia (17), neuroendocrine (15), and immunological affectation (19). Regarding gender, women showed higher scores than men in cognition, pain level and depressive syndrome. Mathematical tools are a suitable approach to objectify some elusive features in order to understand the syndrome. Clustering unveils phenotypes combining fibromyalgia with varying degrees of dysautonomia, neuroendocrine or immune features and absence of fibromyalgia with high or low levels of anxiety-depression. There is no a specific phenotype for women or men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of ecosystem plays a central role in the recent debates on the unfolding of a new regime of innovation. In this paper, we contribute to these debates by clarifying the distinction between the emerging concept of 'ecosystem of innovation' from the established concept of 'business ecosystems.' Re-interpreting the case of the historical developments of the video game cluster of Montreal, we argue that the dynamics of knowledge creation and innovation in 'ecosystems of innovation' imply to adopt a wider scope and address knowledge flows between a diverse set of business ecosystems and between a business ecosystem and less formalised spaces dedicated to knowledge creation and exploration. We conclude suggesting the complementarity of 'ecosystems of innovation' with 'business ecosystems' and their generativity fuelled by creative tensions between formal and informal loci of knowledge creation, illustrated by diverse talent trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metropolitan community of Montreal (MMC) is located in Eastern Canada and included in the western Quebec seismic zone characterized by shallow crustal earthquakes and moderate seismicity. Most of the urbanized areas are settled close to the Saint-Lawrence River and its tributaries and within the region, delimiting the extension of the clay deposits from the Champlain Sea. The influence of these recent and soft deposits on seismic waves has been observed after the 1988 M5.8 Saguenay earthquake and has proven to be crucial in seismic hazard analysis. The shear-wave velocity Vs averaged over the 30 m of soil, abbreviated Vs30, is one of the most used parameters to characterize the site condition and its influence on seismic waves. Since 2000, a site condition model has been developed for the municipalities of Montreal and Laval, combining seismic and borehole data for risk mitigation purposes. The paper presents an extended version of the Vs30 mapping for the entire region of the MMC, which accounts for half of the population of Quebec, including additional ambient noise recordings, recently updated borehole datasets, geological vector map and unpublished seismic refraction data to derive Vs profiles. The estimated Vs30 values for thousands of sites are then interpolated on a regular grid of 0.01 degrees using the inverse distance weighted interpolation approach. Regions with the lowest estimated Vs30 values where site amplification could be expected on seismic waves are in the Northeastern part and in the Southwest of the MMC. The map expresses in terms of site classes is compared with intensity values derived from citizen observations after recent felt. In general, the highest reported intensity values are found in regions with the lowest Vs30 values on the map. Areas where this rule does not apply, should be investigated further. This site condition model can be used in seismic hazard and risk analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association of ideologically motivated violence with mental health disorders raises specific challenges for security agencies and clinical services. The aim of this paper is to describe the clientele of a specialized intervention program based in Montreal, Quebec, in terms of type of violent ideology and clinical presentation. We conducted a retrospective chart review of 156 individuals referred for violent extremism who received clinical services between 2016 and 2021. Univariate statistics were used to present a description of client sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Roughly a third of clients referred for violent extremism presented non-ideologically based violence (32.6%), followed by 31.4% affiliated with far-right extremist ideology and over a quarter (25.6%) holding extremist views on gender. Over a third of these individuals had a stress-related (35.7%) and/or mood and anxiety disorder (36.9%), followed by 28% with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. The majority had some previous contact with mental health services. A significant number of clients displaying extremist discourses and/or actions needed psychiatric services but often failed to receive them because of the reluctance of clinicians to work with individuals perceived as high risk; in addition, individuals may be reluctant to engage in services perceived to be part of a socio-political system they reject. Specialized services are important as a means to provide mental health care to this group and also to develop knowledge and best practices for working with this clientele and provide consultation to mainstream mental health service providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a surgical case scheduling problem with the objective of minimizing the expected time span of the schedule subject to a prespecified upper bound on the expected waiting time for each patient. The problem is challenging due to its combinatorial and nonlinear nature, and we focus on developing approximate methods to solve the problem. Specifically, we study two approximation methods. In the certainty equivalent method, we approximate the expected time span of the cases by assuming that the waiting time of each surgical case is a deterministic value. In the variance bounding method, we approximate the expected time span based on upper bounds on the variance of the surgical case waiting times. We show that the certainty equivalent method leads to a lower bound on the optimal expected time span, while the variance bounding method leads to an upper bound. Both methods suggest a simple sequencing rule, which is to sort the surgical cases in the ascending order of the surgical duration variability. Based on the upper and lower bounds, we derive a closed‐form, distribution‐free relative error bound for our sequencing rule, and show that it is uniformly bounded with respect to the number of cases. We also conduct a case study based on real‐life data on hernia repair procedures at the Jewish General Hospital in Montréal, to demonstrate our analytical models and their potential benefits for improving surgical scheduling. Finally, we conclude the paper by mentioning a few future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Building form archetypes for medium-sized net zero energy (NZE) buildings were made. • A roof-integrated building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) system was used. • Sensitivity analysis ranked/quantified influential early design stage factors for NZE. • Separate sensitivity analyses were run for four different roof tilt angles. • Orientation, window-wall ratio south/north, and plan shape were most influential. This paper is the first of two that examine the influence of building form, including courtyards, on the energy performance of medium-sized institutional solar net zero energy buildings incorporating building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) roof systems. The inclusion of BIPV/T at the early design stage along with passive design techniques extends to energy flexibility considerations with a smart grid. A two storey 3 000 m2 medium-sized archetype building was considered. Through simulations, different building plan shapes and BIPV/T roof tilt angles supported by a range of related building enclosure variables such as insulation level and window characteristics were analyzed and compared. The design configurations used BIPV/T heat recovery for winter ventilation air preheating in the Montreal region. In this first paper, the methodology is presented. Then, using annual net energy use intensity as the target, a global sensitivity analysis was performed to rank and quantify the most sensitive design variables at different BIPV/T roof slopes. Out of the nine input variables analyzed, the most influential by rank were the orientation, the window to wall ratio for the south and north façades, and the plan shape, for roof tilt angles of 35°, 40°, and 45°. For a roof tilt angle of 30°, the window to wall ratio of the south façade was the most influential, switching rank with the orientation. Although not an input variable to the sensitivity analysis, this indicates as well the influence of the BIPV/T roof tilt angle. Also, there was a significant interaction effect between the plan shape and orientation, highlighting the utility of analyzing interaction effects at the early design stage and the importance of these two factors in solar-enhanced buildings. At the other end of the spectrum, the window type, the wall and roof insulation level, and the window to wall ratios for the east and west facades were the least significant – at least approximately one order of magnitude less sensitive than the first ranked input. In the second paper, the methodology is applied in a case study for early stage design in which relative comparisons are made considering building form, net-zero energy, and extended to the grid considering load matching and energy flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Management international / International Management / Gestiòn Internacional is the property of Management International and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article reports on the shutdown of the Lebel-sur-Quevillon pulp mill of Domtar in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in November 2005 resulting from unfavorable economic factors. The company has laid of 425 workers and has announced the reopening of the pulp mill at Lebel-sur-Quevillon when economic factors allow for profitable operation.

Inspired by the South American research tradition known as "social technology," this article proposes an operational framework to advance the understanding of mechanisms that help to promote social transformation. To illustrate its theorizing potential, we apply the framework to a nonprofit organization–Parole d'excluEs–that was created in Montreal (Canada) in 2006 and that has been promoting citizen mobilization and commitment to social change (parole-dexclues.ca). To that end, we offer a theoretical paper with an empirical illustration as a first step in a reflection on employing a global South theoretical lens–drawing on the concept of social technology–to make sense of a global North social innovation experience and to advance existing knowledge on the mechanisms of social transformation. The results contribute to social innovation research and practice, particularly at the interface between the management and nonprofit literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moving averages and other functional forecasting models are used to inform policy in pandemic response. In this paper, we analyze an infectious disease model in which the contact rate switches between two levels when the moving average of active cases crosses one of two thresholds. The switching mechanism naturally forces the existence of periodic orbits. In order to make unbiased comparisons between periodic orbits in this model and a traditional one where the contact rate switches based on more simplistic pointwise evaluations of active cases, we use a rigorous homotopy continuation method. We develop computer-assisted proofs that can validate the continuation and prove that the branch of periodic orbits has no folds and is isolated in the space of periodic solutions. This allows a direct, rigorous comparison between the geometric and quantitative properties of the cycles with a moving average threshold and a pointwise threshold. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method on a sample problem modeled off of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city of Montreal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]