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IEEE International Symposium on Robotic and Sensors Environments (ROSE 2011) was held on September 17?18, 2011, at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, in Montreal, QC, Canada. ROSE 2011 was the first opportunity for the conference series to be conducted as an IEEE Symposium, following a sustained and successful number of ROSE Workshop venues from 2003 to 2010, that took place in Europe, Canada, and the USA. Following the tradition established in 2003, the ROSE Symposium addresses all aspects of sensing systems and technologies for robotics and industrial automation, as well as their impact on autonomous robotic and intelligent systems development and applications. At ROSE 2011, 41 papers presenting contributions of high quality were presented, addressing the diversity of problems and applications that combine sensors, decision systems, and robots. Following the symposium, a number of substantially extended manuscripts, inspired by papers presented at ROSE 2011, and addressing topics of particular relevance for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, were submitted and went through a rigorous peerreview process, identical to that of regular paper submissions. Following this process, three manuscripts were accepted and are included in this Special Section. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highlights the Early Experiential Deprivation and Enrichment and Later Development symposium in Montreal, Quebec. Proponents of developmentalism in psychology; Styles of verbal interaction between mother and child; Identification of basic sensory and perceptual mechanisms.

We study healthcare operations of emergency departments (EDs) by examining the practice styles and skills of ED physicians. Our data include all residents of Montreal, Canada, with an initial ED visit in Montreal during a nine-month period. For each visit, our data record the initial treating hospital, ED physician, ED billed expenditures, and all interactions with the health system within the subsequent 90 days. Physicians in Montreal rotate across shifts between simple and difficult cases, implying a quasi-random assignment of patients to physicians within an ED. We consider three medical conditions that present frequently in the ED and for which mistreatment may have dramatic consequences—angina, appendicitis, and transient ischemic attacks—jointly examining diagnostic and disposition skills. To control for variation in diagnosis, our sample for each condition consists of patients with a broader set of symptoms and signs potentially indicative of the condition. Separately by condition, we regress healthcare usage and cost measures on indicators for physicians to estimate the skill and practice style of each physician. We then evaluate the variation across physicians in their practice style and skills and the correlations between different measures of skill and practice style. We find significant variation across physicians in their practice styles and skills. We also find that physicians with costly practice styles often have worse outcomes in terms of more ED revisits and more hospitalizations. Finally, the practice styles and skills of physicians correlate positively across the three conditions that we consider. This paper was accepted by Jayashankar Swaminathan, operations management. Funding: Gowrisankaran acknowledges funding from the Center for Management Innovations in Healthcare at the University of Arizona. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4544. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical modeling of precipitation at fine (sub-kilometer) spatial scales is computationally very expensive. This study develops a highly efficient framework for this task by coupling deep learning (DL) and physical modeling. This framework is developed and tested using regional climate simulations performed over a domain covering Montreal and adjoining regions, for the summers of 2015–2020, at 2.5 km and 250 m resolutions. The DL framework uses a recurrent approach and considers atmospheric physical processes, such as advection, to generate high-resolution information from low-resolution data, which enables it to recreate fine details and produce temporally consistent fields. The DL framework generates realistic high-resolution precipitation estimates, including intense short-duration precipitation events, which allows it to be applied in engineering problems, such as evaluating the climate resiliency of urban storm drainage systems. The results portray the value of the proposed DL framework, which can be extended to other resolutions, periods, and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the highlights of the 6th annual Console-ing Passions conference that was held at the Concordia University in Montréal, Quebec from May 1-4, 1997. The convention is considered an annual rendezvous for a network of film scholars and videomakers. The areas of focus during the conference included television, video and feminism. One of the sessions during the event focused on the counterpointed textual analysis from Julia Lesage.

From a radical interpretive perspective, the distinction between primary and secondary data is itself secondary. Taking as a case study sample newspaper accounts for the motive behind the famous hockey venue move in Montreal (from the Forum to the Molson Centre), this paper will demonstrate what is involved in treating this talk as a discourse. By testing these newspaper accounts, the paper will show that a sole focus on the empirical accuracy of such motive characterizations can fail to take up the way the accounts, when understood as a discourse, are themselves ways of accessing how social phenomena emerge as objects in the world. The latter analysis, it will be claimed, makes for a more grounded understanding. Specifically drawing on Blum and McHugh's (1971) analysis of motive talk, the paper will demonstrate the insights into the culture of cities that a radical interpretive perspective can make in this case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of workfare, characterized by the rise of 'work first' policies, new actors are emerging in the field of labour market integration. This paper explores the role of one labour market intermediary- Petites-Mains. Petites-Mains is a Work Integration Social Enterprise (WISE), which emerged to promote the social and economic inclusion of immigrant women in Montreal. We discuss the challenges the organization confronts in balancing its hybrid economic/social mandate and countering the negative effects of the market. While WISEs in Quebec have their origins in community or religious associations and their emergence can be traced to the decline of the welfare state, over time they have become increasingly dependent on state funding (especially support from the provincial government). The increasingly neoliberal orientation of provincial governments threatens the social mandates of the WISEs. These changes are affecting the potential of WISEs to assist marginalized immigrant women. We discuss some of the ways WISEs respond to the challenges they confront, leveraging networks at a variety of scales, and in doing so, we challenge conventional accounts of the role of civil society organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Geomechanik und Tunnelbau 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.)

The aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework to manage the innovation process in small businesses. It is based on research from 11 case studies in the Montreal software industry using contingency and resource dependency theories. This conceptual framework provides a view of the innovation process that differs from the linear approach often used in many studies to investigate innovation in small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). The linear approach considers the process as a set of activities that includes developing from one stage to another, while depending on the previous one. We conceptualize the innovation process in small businesses as an interactive process that involves a set of six subprocesses and several keys points of resources mobilization, which requires interacting with both internal and external business actors. Successful mobilization of innovation resources at all key points determines the success or failure of SMEs' innovation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Young adults have the highest prevalence of smoking among all age groups in most industrialized countries and exhibit great variability in smoking behavior. Differences in associations between features in residential environments and smoking initiation, prevalence, and cessation have been extensively examined in the literature. Nonetheless, in many cases, findings remain inconsistent. This paper proposes that a potential driver of these inconsistencies is an almost exclusive focus on point-specific smoking outcomes, without consideration for the different behavior patterns that this age group may experience over time.Aims and Methods: Based on data from the Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking cohort of 18- to 25-year-old Montreal residents (n = 1025), we examined associations between 4-year smoking patterns measured at three timepoints and proximal presence/density of tobacco retail outlets and presence of smoker accommodation facilities in Montreal, Canada. Associations were tested using two-level multinomial and logistic models.Results: In fully adjusted models, compared to never-smokers, residents of areas with a higher density of tobacco retail were more likely to (1) be characterized as established smokers, (2) have experienced repeated changes in smoking status (being "switchers") during the 4-year study period, and (3) be former smokers.Conclusions: From a conceptual standpoint, these findings highlight the importance of acknowledging and examining smoking behavior patterns among young adults. Furthermore, specific pattern-feature associations may point to unique mechanisms by which features could influence smoking behavior patterns. These findings require replication and extension, including testing hypotheses regarding tobacco retail density's role in sustaining smoking and in influencing changes in smoking status.Implications: Results from this study highlight the importance of describing and examining different young adult smoking behavior patterns and how they may be influenced by residential environment features such as the density of tobacco retail. Findings suggest that young adults residing in areas with a higher density of tobacco retailers are more likely to have experienced repeated changes in smoking status and to be established smokers. Further research in this area is needed to advance knowledge of the putative mechanisms by which residential features may influence smoking behavior patterns and to ultimately orient policy and interventions seeking to curb smoking at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Connected Vertex Cover problem, where the goal is to compute a minimum set of vertices in a given graph which forms a vertex cover and induces a connected subgraph, is a fundamental combinatorial problem and has received extensive attention in various subdomains of algorithmics. In the area of kernelization, it is known that this problem is unlikely to have a polynomial kernelization algorithm. However, it has been shown in a recent work of Lokshtanov et al. (Proceedings of the 49th annual ACM SIGACT symposium on theory of computing, STOC 2017, Montreal, QC, Canada, 2017) that if one considered an appropriate notion of approximate kernelization, then this problem parameterized by the solution size does admit an approximate polynomial kernelization. In fact, Lokshtanov et al. were able to obtain a polynomial size approximate kernelization scheme (PSAKS) for Connected Vertex Cover parameterized by the solution size. A PSAKS is essentially a preprocessing algorithm whose error can be made arbitrarily close to 0. In this paper we revisit this problem, and consider parameters that are strictly smaller than the size of the solution and obtain the first polynomial size approximate kernelization schemes for the Connected Vertex Cover problem when parameterized by the deletion distance of the input graph to the class of cographs, the class of bounded treewidth graphs, and the class of all chordal graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, electric vehicles (EVs) have become a popular mode of individual transportation due to their significant benefits over internal combustion engine vehicles, resulting in significant growth in their penetration rate. However, the current flat electricity charging pricing and rapid diffusion of EVs may impose challenges to both transportation systems and power grids. It is well-accepted that the implementation of charging pricing schemes is a promising solution for changing and controlling EV users' charging behavior. Nevertheless, in most research studies that have examined pricing schemes, the charging logic is defined in a way that agents will charge their vehicles while performing their daily activities. This will make the application of pricing schemes unfeasible, as agents will not have the freedom to unplug their EVs whenever they want, to reduce their billing costs. Accordingly, this paper provides an agent and activity-based framework for charging pricing schemes by decoupling activity and charging start and end times. Following this, three different charging pricing schemes have been introduced, including time of use (TOU), non-linear and zonal pricing and tested on the Montreal scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Nadine Sen Nkwe is first author on 'A potent nuclear export mechanism imposes USP16 cytoplasmic localization during interphase', published in JCS. Nadine is a PhD student in the lab of Dr El Bachir Affar at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Center, Montréal, Québec, Canada, investigating the molecular and biological mechanisms involved in cancer progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population segregation measurement is a topic of broad interest in the social sciences. In this paper we draw from recent advances in the spatial analysis literature to derive individualized measures of clustering and exposure. Recent research on accessibility has seen a shift from place-based measures to person-based ones. Similarly, the notion of residential clustering and exposure patterns, while typically related to the distribution of population in zonal systems, can be modified to account for heterogeneous experiences of urban space. In particular, at the individual level, the degree of clustering and exposure is related to personal mobility and the individual experience of space. In this paper we turn to the question of whether individuals belonging to different groups and living in different areas of a city observe differences in their clustering and exposure to population groups over space. The proposed procedure is applied empirically to the case of Montreal to explore how native English speakers of various levels of mobility experience exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Labour productivity plays an important role in the successful delivery of engineering, procurement and construction projects. This paper aims to present a field study that determines the effects of a set of variables on daily and/or short-term jobsite labour productivity, using artificial neural network model. Design/methodology/approach - The data used in this paper were collected over a period of ten months, directly from the job sites of two building construction projects in Montreal. A neural network model was used to study a number of factors considered to impact labour productivity on daily basis. These included temperature, relative-humidity, wind speed, precipitation, gang size, crew composition, height of work, type of work and construction method employed. The data were then analyzed to determine the influence of these parameters on site labour productivity. Findings - Among the nine parameters studied, temperature was found to have the most significant impact on productivity, closely followed by the height then by the type of work. Given the range of the collected data available on the variables considered, temperature, humidity and crew composition were found each to have a similar trend, with an optimum value that corresponds to the normalized maximum productivity. Originality/value - The findings of this paper will provide awareness and better understanding of parameters that impact labour productivity in building construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As with most multilateral environmental negotiations, the on going negotiations for a liability and redress regime in the context of the Cartagena Protocol have proved difficult. While content issues, such as the standard of liability, the scope of the instrument, the nature of the damage and the burden of proof have dominated discussions, the question relating to the nature of the instrument has lurked quietly, but ominously, in the background. This issue came to a head at COP/MOP4 in Bonn - where the instrument was due to be adopted. This paper traces the development of the discussions on the nature of the instrument to be adopted. In particular it considers the slow rise to prominence of the administrative approach to liability at the expense of the civil liability system. This slow rise to prominence of the administrative approach leads to the adoption of a dual approach, meaning a binding instrument on the administrative approach and a nonbinding instrument on civil liability. The paper argues that the positions adopted by the various delegations on the nature of instrument illuminate the complexities of modern international environmental law making and may dispell some closely held beliefs about environmental law making, particularly as it relates to the role of the South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural diversity poses a challenge to mental Health care systems in many settings. Specialized cultural consultation services have been developed in a number of countries as a way to supplement existing services. The objective of this paper is to compare and contrast cultural consultation services in Montreal, London, and Paris to determine how culture and society have shaped the evolution of these services to meet local sensitivities and imperatives. Historical contexts of the sites, their descriptions and origins, how they categorize cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity, and their intake procedures are compared and contrasted according to a standardized template of themes. Data came from site visits and participant observation at each site. For historical, political, and cultural reasons, categorization of diversity and intake procedures differ markedly by site: Montreal focuses on language categories and language proficiency; London enumerates ethnic diversity according to officially mandated categories; and Paris does not gather ethnic data on its patients in any form. The process of cultural consultation, specifically its triage and intake procedures, is profoundly influenced by local histories and social norms that are maintained by professional cultures of psychiatry in each setting. To properly place their patients in context, cultural psychiatrists must not only aim to understand the culture of the other, but also must consider the culture of the mainstream society and how it shapes the delivery of services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.)

Copyright of Question (1669-6581) is the property of Universidad Nacional de La Plata 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.)

In 1989, it dawned on participants at the First World Congress of Herpetology that observed declines in amphibian populations might actually be global in scope and unprecedented in severity. Three decades of research since then has produced an enormous increase in our knowledge of amphibian ecology and appreciation of the complexity of possible causes for amphibian population declines. In September 2019, 30 yr after the First World Congress ended, a day-long, international symposium on amphibian population declines was held at the Redpath Museum of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Symposium participants drew upon the knowledge gained over three decades of study to look ahead with fresh ideas to address this vital aspect of the global decline of biodiversity. Despite tremendous progress over the past three decades there is still much about amphibian ecology, population biology, and pathology that remains unknown. Amphibian declines have turned out to be more complex than originally expected and the result of multiple possible causes acting across landscapes, among taxa, or between populations in ways that are not at all uniform. The papers in this special issue of Herpetologica, which stem from the symposium, explore much of our current understanding of amphibian declines and their causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The property valuation is classically challenged by the weighting of attributes and observed prices of properties. Modern approaches, using statistical potential, optimization, and rich data increased expectations for better results. Although the practitioners recognize that, they prefer accessible estimations with the convenience of interpreting them like in the sales comparison adjustment-grid. The weighting process is thus either weak in practice or complex in modeling culture. The challenge mainly originates from the incoherencies, sometimes significant, between the negotiated prices and the utility reward (contribution) of attributes. Economic agents take decisions under uncertainty, essentially influenced by their subjective expectations, capacity of evaluation and ability of using reliable information. Therefore, existing approaches suffer from properly addressing these issues of valuation. In this paper, we are motivated to improve these issues based on Choquet integral (CI) and fuzzy logic, well-known in Multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. In comparison to the available classic (Adjustment-grid) and statistical approaches (like OLS regressions), the method we develop objectively and accurately weights the contribution of property attributes and the adjusted prices in market value estimations. Based on empirical experiments in case-by-case and mass valuation of single-family properties in Montreal (Canada), the results are encouraging and support its reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue des Sciences de l'Education is the property of Revue des Sciences de l'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.)

Many cities adopt strategies to increase the modal share of walking and cycling, aiming to reduce the negative impacts of car trips. Despite such projects, strategies and infrastructure promoting active modes, modal shares of walking (10.1%) and cycling (1.6%) remain relatively small compared to the car (54.3%) in the Greater Montreal Area. In this context, it seems relevant to access the upper bound of the potential of cycling and walking. This paper proposes a methodology to estimate the latent walking and cycling trips in an urban area using large scale Origin-Destination (OD) data. The method builds on previous research and accounts for the distance overlapping zone for walking and cycling trips to obtain a pooled estimation of active transportation latent trips. The methodology is mainly based on a sequential process using trips reported during the 2013 OD survey in Montreal. Results show that 5.2% of daily motorized trips (427,813 trips) could be made by walking and 19.4% (1,605,244 trips) by cycling. From these, 57.1% were made as car drivers. 2.8% of motorized trips could be transferred to both walking and cycling. These trips were allocated to either walking or cycling using an overlapping process based on trip distance: 45.9% of them (1.3% of total trips) are transferred to latent walking trips and 54.1% (1.5% of total trips) to latent cycling trips. When we consider latent trips, modal share of walking and cycling would respectively increase from 10.1% to 14.7% and from 1.6% to 18.7% while share of car driver would decrease from 54.3% to 42.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The total value apportionment between land and building components remains an international issue both in theory and in practice. There are several concepts and methods of value separation, each leading to approximate estimations and therefore to divergent opinions about their reliability. In this paper, we present an alternative method of value apportionment based on Shapley's scheme of values, well recognized in the coalitional game theory. The practicality of this method is verified using observed prices of 14,715 residential properties sold during the year 2019 over all the 27 districts in Montreal (Canada). This unique data comes with detailed information about the essential attributes of the land and the building components. The empirical results of the method presented in this work are in line with practical expectations of total and separate values, either taken case-by-case or in aggregation per district. They are indeed encouraging when compared to the results of two other independent methods (i.e., the city evaluations and the OLS predictions) for the same properties. The results are interesting not only regarding the separation of value but also in several other related aspects. For instance, land values are often close to or even higher than the building values. This shows a phenomenon of building depreciation and land value appreciation. Some districts seem to favor the quality of the building, others being influenced by the location and quality of the land. Interestingly, in contrast to what is believed in practice, a good quality parcel of land does not necessarily have a good quality building according to the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how social sustainability is implemented in private-led regeneration processes and which understanding of the "social" foregrounds the implementation of sustainability in Montreal. The case studies are two new residential projects led by the private sector participating in the transformation of the Southwest Borough in Montreal. The analysis is based on six components used to evaluate the operationalisation of social sustainability for new residential projects as well on the analysis of opportunities to negotiate the "social" in the implementation of sustainability. The two case studies, Griffintown and the Bassins-du-Nouveau Havre projects are examples of brownfield regeneration in a former industrial area along the Lachine Canal known as the South West Borough. We have used semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders as the main source for data collection, a review of press articles and an analysis of the principal planning documents related to each project. If the second example is more convincing in regards to the operationalisation of social sustainability, there is a lack of incentives for developers to integrate social sustainability principles in their development in the Montreal context. Planning instruments should impose more constraints on developers and municipalities should have more financial resources to negotiate with developers what the "social" should be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the distribution static compensator model based on the bond graph (BG) domain is presented. The methodology is applied to reactive power compensation in distribution systems where a traditional phase lock loop for sensing the AC grid frequency is not needed. The control law is developed using the inverse BG model, which is extracted using the bi-causality concept. In this way, it is possible to perform the distribution system analysis completely in the BG domain. This means that the graphical model is inverted by obtaining the open-loop control law structure, and then the close loop is formulated. The balanced and unbalance conditions are analyzed, generating a control structure that is robust and efficient. The efficacy of the proposed methodology is shown through: partial and complete system simulations in MATLAB/Simulink® (MATLAB r2015b, Natick, Massachusetts, 01760, USA), as well as experimental laboratory tests. Such tests use: the rapid control prototyping concept and the real-time simulator Opal-RT Technologies® (Montreal, QC, Canada). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we share our reflections based on a process consultation project in collaboration with the Montreal Bicycle Advisory Committee. We put forward the idea that changing people's habits of transportation in Montreal is a complex, wicked problem which cannot be solved by a single actor in a single domain using well-known solutions. We suggest using Transformative Scenario Planning as a framework for how to engage the ecosystem in a participatory, systemic and emergent process to help the system transform its problematic situation. We also discuss the implications of being a stakeholder and change agents in such a transformative culture change process, including our own experience of change through the project. Finally, we end our reflections with a question for further exploration that have emerged from this work. In doing so, we wish to share the continuous inquiry that this work may inspire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), which is thought to have the potential to correct dysbiosis of gut microbiota, has been used to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) for almost a decade. Here, we report an interventional prospective cohort study performed to elucidate the extent of and processes underlying microbiota engraftment in IBD patients after FMT treatment. The cohort included two categories of patients: (a) patients with moderate to severe Crohn's disease (CD) (Harvey–Bradshaw Index ≥ 7, n = 11) and (b) patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) (Montreal classification S2 and S3, n = 4). All patients were treated with a single FMT (via mid‐gut, from healthy donors), and follow‐up visits were performed at baseline, 3 days, 1 week, and 1 month after FMT (missing time points included). At each follow‐up time point, fecal samples and clinical metadata were collected. For comparative analysis, 10 fecal samples from 10 healthy donors were included to represent the diversity level of normal gut microbiota. Additionally, the metagenomic data of 25 fecal samples from five individuals with metabolic syndrome who underwent autologous FMT treatment were downloaded from a previous published paper to represent fluctuations in microbiota induced during FMT. All fecal samples underwent shotgun metagenomic sequencing. We found that 3 days after FMT, 11 out of 15 recipients were in remission (three out of four UC recipients; 8 out of 11 CD recipients). Generally, bacterial colonization was observed to be lower in CD recipients than in UC recipients at both species and strain levels. Furthermore, across species, different strains displayed disease‐specific displacement advantages under two‐disease status. Finally, most post‐FMT species (> 80%) could be properly predicted (area under the curve > 85%) using a random forest classification model, with the gut microbiota composition and clinical parameters of pre‐FMT recipients acting as factors that contribute to prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political status and movements of refugees and sans-papiers has become a focal point for French political thought, but also more universally in the wake of globalisation. We have witnessed the issue here in the US in the debate over immigration. In France, Alain Badiou's Organisation Politique, for instance, has coined the phrase, in regard to France's sanspapiers, 'all those who are here are from here.' However, if we follow closely the events of 2002 and after among the Algerian refugees of Montréal, what emerges is a case study in politics as conceived by Jacques Rancière. This paper details both the movement and its implicitly Rancièrean underpinnings. I will include an overview of Rancière's political thought. What is attempted in this paper, as part of a larger project that will examine other contemporary political movements, is to show how a politics can look in our world, and thus to begin to efface the line that is often drawn between political theory and political activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at the 22nd International Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA 2007) in Montreal, Quebec is presented. The conference was in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the paper entitled "No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering," by Fred Brooks. The panelists discussed whether Brooks' assumptions that the complexity of software was not accidental.

Montreal, a city delimited by a French-speaking East and an English-speaking West, is often used as an example of how language can organize urban landscapes. That said, examining Black life in Montreal complicates that tidy narrative by illustrating how race, not language, configures the city. Broadly, this study examines the way racial and linguistic divisions play out in the geography of the city. More specifically, as it is grounded in Black geography and cultural geography, this paper highlights how Black activists in the 1990s made explicit the many ways in which Blackness in Montreal was rooted in a history and a geography that exceeds urban and national boundaries. Contesting an ethnicization that marked their Haitianness as outside Blackness, these activists also bridged smaller-scale divisions: those inscribed at the scale of the city that placed Haitians in the East and Black anglophone people in the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Canadian urban design, despite some notable exceptions, is relatively limited. This paper explains from an urban form perspective the practice of urban design in Montreal, Canada, by studying three representative projects built during the past six decades. Through the analysis of these projects, the principal aim is to understand how urban design approaches have evolved over time and how they have influenced the morphology of the city. The main findings of the research show that the schools of thought that have nurtured urban design practices over time have especially influenced the link between planned built environments and city forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the sharing economy (SE) has attracted considerable attention, both scholarly and popular, relating to its capacity to enforce or undermine extant economic conventions. However, the process through which technological developments can effectively have this outcome of altering extant conventions on what is morally acceptable or desirable is still unclear. In this paper, we draw on the work of Boltanski and Thévenot (On justification: economies of worth. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2006) and the notion of agencement to investigate the moral and performative dimension of controversies related to the SE. The research stems from a qualitative case-based study of the controversy following Uber's implementation in Montréal's taxi market. We contribute to the literature on the SE through an empirical study of the moral debates entailed in the unfolding in situ of a SE device. We also add to the literature using the 'Orders of Worth' framework (2006) by showing how a compromise is solidified. We find that beyond discursive strategies, it is the concrete recomposition of laws, conventions, devices, persons, etc. that harmonised different definitions of the common good. Finally, we contribute to the literature on the relationship between technology, ethics, and social change by capturing the specific values that legitimise Uber, and by following their unfolding throughout a controversy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Preference-based measures of health-related quality of life (HRQL) are used as primary or secondary endpoints in multiple sclerosis (MS) research. Objective: The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the structural, convergent, and known-groups validity of the preference-based multiple sclerosis index (PBMSI) of HRQL in people with MS. Methods: Participants were recruited from three MS clinics in Montreal. Structural validity was assessed using polychoric correlation coefficients and factor analysis. To assess convergent validity, hypotheses were formulated about the strength of correlations between the PBMSI and other HRQL measures. Known-groups validity was assessed against different measures of disability. Results: The average age of the sample was 46 and 77% were women. Factor analysis supported the structural validity of the PBMSI; the items collectively were measuring one underlying construct. The PBMSI showed convergent validity against generic measures of HRQL, and known-groups validity between persons with different levels of disability. Conclusion: The results of this study support the construct validity of the PBMSI as an outcome measure of HRQL in MS. The PBMSI overcomes limitations observed with currently used HRQL measures in MS and may be used to contrast different interventions for people with MS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an examination of nineteenth-century familial correspondence and the records of various Protestant charitable organizations in Quebec City and Montreal, this article explores the changing culture of family care during illness and old age. It posits a new interpretation for the foundation of asylums for women that emphasizes changing perceptions of the family, especially the attitudes regarding the care of servants within the household. Furthermore, it argues that the treatment of servants as both caregivers and those in need of medical care is an important yardstick by which to measure the waning of the patriarchal household and the emergence of more explicitly contractual relations between the classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the minutes of the 40th Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Economics Association held at Montreal, Quebec, Canada in May 2006. They include approval of the agenda and presentation of reports by the president Gregor Smith, secretary-treasurer Frances Woolley, and Dwayne Benjamin, managing editor of the association's official journal.

Highlights the 16th World Conference on Nondestructive Testing, which was held from August 30 to September 3, 2004 in Montreal, Quebec. Event description; Attendees; Topics discussed; Programs and activities.

Copyright of Journal of Eastern Townships Studies / Revue d'études des Cantons-de-l'Est (JETS/RECE) is the property of Eastern Townships Resource Centre 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.)

LINKED CONTENT: This article is linked to Wong et al and Kahrilas papers. To view these articles, visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16561 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16572 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LINKED CONTENT: This article is linked to Wong et al and Wong & Chen papers. To view these articles, visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16561 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16587 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic accidents are among the most common causes of death worldwide. According to statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), 50 million people are involved in traffic accidents every year. Canada, particularly Montreal, is not immune to this problem. Data from the Société de l'Assurance Automobile du Québec (SAAQ) show that there were 392 deaths on Québec roads in 2022, 38 of them related to the city of Montreal. This value represents an increase of 29.3% for the city of Montreal compared with the average for the years 2017 to 2021. In this context, it is important to take concrete measures to improve traffic safety in the city of Montreal. In this article, we present a web-based solution based on machine learning that predicts the severity of traffic accidents in Montreal. This solution uses a dataset of traffic accidents that occurred in Montreal between 2012 and 2021. By predicting the severity of accidents, our approach aims to identify key factors that influence whether an accident is serious or not. Understanding these factors can help authorities implement targeted interventions to prevent severe accidents and allocate resources more effectively during emergency responses. Classification algorithms such as eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Categorical Boosting (CatBoost), Random Forest (RF), and Gradient Boosting (GB) were used to develop the prediction model. Performance metrics such as precision, recall, F1 score, and accuracy were used to evaluate the prediction model. The performance analysis shows an excellent accuracy of 96% for the prediction model based on the XGBoost classifier. The other models (CatBoost, RF, GB) achieved 95%, 93%, and 89% accuracy, respectively. The prediction model based on the XGBoost classifier was deployed using a client–server web application managed by Swagger-UI, Angular, and the Flask Python framework. This study makes significant contributions to the field by employing an ensemble of supervised machine learning algorithms, achieving a high prediction accuracy, and developing a real-time prediction web application. This application enables quicker and more effective responses from emergency services, potentially reducing the impact of severe accidents and improving overall traffic safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban mobility infrastructures have a major impact on the everyday life of city residents. Not only their mobility, but also their health, enjoyment of life and development of lifestyle preferences are affected by them. However, inclusive participation in infrastructure planning processes is difficult to achieve. We explore a foresight approach that develops desirable urban visions that involve residents in the preparation of decisions that will impact their lives. We propose future-oriented co-design workshops for the operationalisation of a capabilitarian focus on conscientisation, conciliation and collaboration to involve citizens in the visioning of infrastructure planning. The study is based on future-oriented codesign workshops held in Montreal in 2022–2023. Residents were invited to evaluate and discuss various future scenarios that re-imagine a highway currently cutting through the city. The results show the capabilitarian co-design workshops to promote critical thinking, vision creation and to a lesser extent collaboration in the discussions triggered by the future-oriented codesign workshops. The results also reveal the difficulties of making such discussions truly inclusive, as well as their ambivalent relation to urban planning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]