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Efforts to prevent work-related injuries have met with tangible success in industrialized countries. In Quebec, workplace accidents and occupational illness have declined sharply since the end of the 1990s. However, there is still considerable room for improvement in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Expert specialists in accident prevention in SMEs are overloaded. Their interventions are repetitive and not personalised. Few tools are available for accelerating the process of evaluating occupational health and safety (OHS) performance. The aim of this research project was to address this deficiency by proposing a novel OHS performance evaluation tool better adapted to SMEs. For this purpose, research was carried out in two distinct phases. The first phase led to the theoretical model on which the tool is based. The second phase was carried out using an action research approach. The proposed tool was designed and improved during this phase, through field-testing and the involvement of a Quebec industrial partner. In spite of the limitations of this research, we have succeeded in developing a new tool with software support adapted specifically for the evaluation of OHS performance in SMEs. Upon completion of the project, a tested and improved version of the tool was delivered to the industrial partner. Experts in accident prevention have found the tool to be reliable and helpful. It has accelerated the identification of deficiencies in OHS management in several SMEs and has helped specialists to develop personalized and better-focused plans of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the growing body of work on precarious labor, immigration, and social gerontology by examining the racialization of precarious employment across the life course. In particular, the authors examine the impact of precarious employment and discrimination among racialized older immigrants in Canada. Racialized older immigrants are more likely to be disadvantaged by the effects of lifelong intersections of economic and social discrimination rooted in racialization, gender, ageism, and socio-economic status. Drawing from a narrative-photovoice project that focused on the life stories of older immigrants living in Quebec and British Columbia, this paper presents the in-depth stories and photographs of four participants to highlight how intersections of race, gender, age, immigration status, and ability shape and structure experiences of aging, labor market participation and caregiving relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Routing regular and dangerous commodities in railway freights transportation is discussed in this paper. Based on a link-based modeling approach, a mixed integer nonlinear programing model is developed. The model takes into account weather stability conditions of urban and rural areas and spatial distribution of risk at yards and around links as it impacts these zones along the routes. This paper also discusses the advantages of using bifurcation of flows on risk-cost tradeoffs and route planning decisions. The widely used nonlinear risk function is linearized and then the problem was solved to optimality using a commercial software. Results of the experiments on two hypothetical networks and one based on the rail network of the Province of Québec in Canada are presented and analyzed. Routing decisions associated with both variants of the proposed model with bifurcation of the material flows are compared to obtain managerial insights on the model in solving hazmat freight routing problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the ethical judgment that lies at the heart of assessing requests for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) in Canada and Quebec, namely is it ethically right to help the person requesting assistance to end his or her life? We address situations in which making this judgment may be challenging despite the person fulfilling legal eligibility requirements. Using three clinical cases that are challenging by virtue of the legal requirement that a person experience intolerable suffering we explore this issue. We review practice guidance provided to providers and assessors in six jurisdictions and discuss potential resources to inform the ethical judgments involved in MAID assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information about several research papers related to various aspects of food and nutrition. It includes food security of Syrian refugee households in Canada, maternal mental health and infant feeding style, childcare director perceptions on healthy food consumption, the effect of food advertisements on food intake, and associations between intuitive eating levels and desire to eat during pregnancy.

Background: Participation in on-the-land programs that encourage traditional cultural activities may improve health and well-being. The Income Security Program (ISP) - a financial incentive-based on-the-land program - for Eeyouch (Cree) hunters and trappers in Eeyou Istchee was created as a result of the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement to help mitigate the effects of hydroelectric development on the Cree people of northern Quebec, Canada. Beyond the ISP's financial incentives, little is known about the health measures of those who are eligible to participate in the ISP (i.e. spent ≥120 days on-the-land during the previous year). Therefore, this paper's objective was to assess the health measures of northern Quebec Cree, who were eligible for participation in the ISP.Methods: Using participant data (n = 545) compiled from the Nituuchischaayihtitaau Aschii Multi-Community Environment-and-Health Study, we assessed 13 different health measures in generalized linear models with the independent variable being the eligibility to participate in the ISP.Results: Participants in the present study who were eligible for the ISP had significantly higher levels of vigorous and moderate activity per week, and higher concentrations of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the blood compared to those ineligible for the ISP (i.e. spent ≤119 days on-the-land during the previous year). Encouragingly, following model adjustment for age and sex, participants eligible for the ISP did not have higher blood concentrations of mercury than those who were not eligible for the ISP.Conclusions: Our results suggest that the participants eligible for participation in the ISP are likely to be healthier than those who are ineligible to participate - and are promising for on-the-land programs for Indigenous peoples beyond a financial incentive - with no apparent higher risk of increasing contaminant body burden through traditional on-the-land-activities (e.g. fish consumption). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Metabolic risk factors, low cognitive function and history of depression are known risk factors for future depressive episodes. This paper aims to evaluate the potential interactions between these factors on the risk of a major depressive episodes in middle-age.Methods: Baseline and follow-up data from a population-based study of Quebec, Canada were used. The sample consisted of 1788 adults between 40 and 69 years of age without diabetes. Cognitive function and metabolic risk factors were assessed at baseline. Three cognitive domains were assessed: processing speed, episodic memory and executive function. History of depression was assessed five years later by a clinical interview. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate interactions between individual metabolic factors, low cognitive function, and depression history.Results: Participants with a comorbidity of at least one metabolic factor, history of depression and low cognitive function had the highest risk of experiencing a depressive episode in middle age. The highest risk was observed in individuals with abdominal obesity, low cognitive function, and a history of depression (OR= 8.66, 95% CI 3.83-19.59). The risks for those with abdominal obesity only, depression history only, and low cognitive function were 1.20 (95%CI 0.71-2.02), 3.10 (95%CI 1.81-5.24), and 1.39 (95%CI 0.72-2.67), respectively.Limitations: Depression was only assessed at follow-up.Conclusion: Metabolic risk factors comorbid with low cognitive function in middle-aged individuals with a history of depression were associated with an increased risk of a future depressive episode. This study highlights the importance of screening for metabolic and cognitive comorbidities in patients with a history of depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the prevalence of ballot order effects in two different types of Canadian elections which differ greatly by the strength of party cues they provide to voters. Provincial elections are best described as a typical competition between well established and institutionalized parties, hence providing voters with strong party cues. Alternatively, municipal politics provide voters with much weaker party cues. We use electoral results from recent provincial and municipal elections in Québec and find ballot order effects in municipal elections but not in provincial ones. Although ballot order effects may also be the product of alphabetic preference bias, we argue that in any case these are cognitive biases that are ultimately the product of insufficient cues that voters need in order to cast well-informed votes. The paper, therefore, sheds some light on an understudied type of election in political science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This qualitative study explored how counsellors who work with women currently or formerly involved in sex work perceive these women's future. From May to July 2016, we conducted semi‐structured interviews with 21 counsellors providing psychosocial services in Canadian agencies with recognized mandates to support such women. The interview protocol was based on the Possible Selves Mapping Interview, adapted to explore the counsellors' hopes and fears for these clients. We subjected the interview transcripts to an interpretive descriptive analysis. Our findings centred on three themes: the counsellors' hopes for their clients' future, in light of their personal and social resources; the counsellors' fears about the cumulative devastating effects that their clients' work environment might have on them; and the counsellors' fears that these women would lose hope for the future. This study clearly demonstrates the importance of addressing the safety and well‐being of women involved in sex work and of recognizing the impacts of social inequalities and structural barriers on these women's life paths. The implications of these findings for policies and practices are discussed at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common in discourse surrounding Québécois and Puerto Rican nationalism to discuss both regions in terms of their linguistic marginality to Anglo-majorities found in Canada and the USA, respectively. As two areas faced with the common American task of inventing a national identity in displaced settings in the New World, English becomes an easy "other" against which the French Quebecker and Spanish Puerto Rican may define themselves. However, language becomes a problematic means of definition when considered in relation to its intrinsically Old World origins. This paper reexamines Quebec and Puerto Rican nationalism from a larger New World perspective that focuses on the role of American landscapes and settings in conjunction with the traditional linguistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contributes to the literature on black students and racial disparities in high school completion in Canada and makes original use of the 2006 Census to analyze the educational attainment of 18- to 19-year-olds in Ontario and Quebec. Results of a logistic regression indicate that in both provinces, black/white disparities in graduation rates disappear when income, family structure, language, gender, and place of residence are taken into account. Higher rates of socioeconomic disadvantage among black children pose challenges for high school completion. These findings do not imply that racism has no impact; indeed, the paper concludes that high school completion may not be the outcome most suitable for evaluating the effects of racism on educational attainment. Future studies should examine the causes of racial disparities in intermediate outcomes of school success (i.e., grades, special education placement, academic tracking, and disciplinary sanctions), and their effects on the graduation rates and postsecondary pathways of black students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Did the introduction of the Charter of Quebec Values in September 2013 signal a repudiation of Quebec's longstanding consensus on liberal-pluralism in its dominant integration model? While the Charter died as a result of the election defeat of the minority Parti Québécois government in May, 2014, its salience and impact continues to be felt, in that it has moved the normative benchmarks around ethnocultural and ethno-religious diversity and represents a qualitatively new framework for regulating the terms of belonging in Quebec. This paper, however, contends that such a reading of the legacy of the Charter misses a significant part of the story. A broader contextual overview reveals that recent events in Quebec are conditioned by variables associated with the unfinished nature of a constitutive project for national integration. Regardless of whether or not the proposed Charter signaled a permanent normative turn in Quebec, or merely an intensification and greater polarization of an interminable argument, this paper will attempt to provide some context with which to interpret this 'trial balloon' of the minority Parti Québécois government in power from 2012-2014. I argue that this short-lived incursion into more exclusionary politics are the direct result of a variety of factors that go beyond standard normative principles usually attributed to citizenship and actually reflect structural difficulties associated with Quebec's status as an unrecognized minority nation. The article will proceed to highlight the primary identity-forging initiatives undertaken by Quebec in lieu of citizenship, and conclude with some reflections on some distortions that may be attributable to a protracted, frustrated and unfinished constitutive journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quebec's forests represent 20% of Canadian forests and 2% of the world forests. Over the entire planet, forests play a major role in habitat preservation and in supplying goods and services to the population. However, climate change will have an impact on the forest through inter alia increased droughts, forest fires, warmer weather, and infestations. In this paper, we analyze the economic impact of climate change on the forest industry in Quebec over a 40-year period using a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model. We find that the climate change effects will be relatively weak on most macroeconomic variables as agents adjust their behavior over time and factors are reallocated across sectors. We find that climate change could generate losses in gross domestic product of up to Can$300 million (0.12% of gross domestic product) at the end of a 40-year period for Quebec's economy. However, we find relatively more important effects within the sectors of the forest industry, with losses ranging from 3% to 7.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vision of the Canadian Sex Research Forum (CSRF) is to be Canada's leading organization dedicated to interdisciplinary, theoretical, and applied sexuality research. We sought to determine the composition of four previous CSRF Annual Conference (2013-2016) scientific programs. We double-coded 356 abstracts on first author region, discipline, and faculty status; presentation format (oral/poster); and several non-exclusive yes/no questions regarding study populations, topics, and methods. We calculated odds ratios (OR) to assess trends (per year) and likelihood of oral versus poster presentation. Most of authors were from psychology (86.5%), although this decreased over time (98.1% to 80.5%). Most abstracts used quantitative methods (82.9%) and there was a decrease over time in abstracts using qualitative (26.4% to 16.3%) and experimental (17.0% to 7.3%) methods. For study population and topic, there were increases over time in clinical population foci (7.6% to 23.6%) and decreases in race/ethnicity foci (3.8% to 0.8%) and methods topics (18.9% to 5.7%). Half of the abstracts were oral presentations (44.9%), which were more frequently awarded to faculty (81.1% vs. 38.6%), sexual practice topics (50.7% vs. 40.8%), relationship topics (52.3% vs. 40.7%), methodology topics (50.0% vs. 44.2%), and theory papers (71.4% vs. 43.3%). Oral presentations were less frequently awarded to single sex/gender populations (36.7% vs. 48.4%), student-only populations (35.3% vs. 51.2%), race/ethnicity foci (20.0% vs. 45.5%), and quantitative methods (43.4% vs. 52.5%). To achieve CSRF's vision of "interdisciplinary, theoretical, and applied research,'' we must undertake intentional strategic action (e.g., more content from non-psychology disciplines, more qualitative methods). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Louis Veuillot, well-known among the ultramontane journalistic circle, was also a recognized writer. In colleges, his texts were included into the curriculum of colleges and also in activities outside classrooms. This paper studies the integration of Veuillot's works in literary and religious education for three periods, 1840-1871,1910-1930 and 1950-1970. Whereas Veuillot was not a part of the curriculum in the nineteenth century, the beginning of the twentieth century was the golden age of Veuillot's distribution in colleges, especially during the centennial celebrations in 1913. In these years, the writer became an example for young people, yet the 1950's spelled the end of his teaching. Nevertheless, during a few decades, Louis Veuillot was part of the literary culture among college students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rural emergency departments (EDs) constitute crucial safety nets for the 20% of Canadians who live in rural areas. Pilot data suggests that the province of Québec appears to provide more comprehensive access to services than do other provinces. A difference that may be attributable to provincial policy/guidelines "the provincial ED management Guide". The aim of this study was to provide a detailed description of rural EDs in Québec and utilization of the provincial ED management Guide.Methods: We selected EDs offering 24/7 medical coverage, with hospitalization beds, located in rural or small towns. We collected data via telephone, paper, and online surveys with rural ED/hospital staff. Data were also collected from Québec's Ministry of Health databases and from Statistics Canada. We computed descriptive statistics, ANOVA and t-tests were used to examine the relationship between ED census, services and inter-facility transfer requirements.Results: A total of 23 of Québec's 26 rural EDs (88%) consented to participate in the study. The mean annual ED visits was 18 813 (Standard Deviation = 6 151). Thirty one percent of ED physicians were recent graduates with fewer than 5 years of experience. Only 6 % had residency training or certification in emergency medicine. Teams have good local access (24/7) to diagnostic equipment such as CT scanner (74%), intensive unit care (78%) and general surgical services (78%), but limited access to other consultants. Sixty one percent of participants have reported good knowledge of the provincial ED management Guide, but only 23% of them have used the guidelines. Furthermore, more than 40% of EDs were more than 300 km from levels 1 to 2 trauma centers, and only 30% had air transport access.Conclusions: Rural EDs in Québec are staffed by relatively new graduates working as solo physicians in well-resourced and moderately busy (by rural standards) EDs. The provincial ED management Guide may have contributed to this model of service attribution. However, the majority of rural ED staff report limited knowledge or use of the provincial ED management Guide and increased efforts at disseminating this Guide are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluated the effects of parametric reduction of a hydrological model on five regionalization methods and 267 catchments in the province of Quebec, Canada. The Sobol’ variance-based sensitivity analysis was used to rank the model parameters by their influence on the model results and sequential parameter fixing was performed. The reduction in parameter correlations improved parameter identifiability, however this improvement was found to be minimal and was not transposed in the regionalization mode. It was shown that 11 of the HSAMI models’ 23 parameters could be fixed with little or no loss in regionalization skill. The main conclusions were that (1) the conceptual lumped models used in this study did not represent physical processes sufficiently well to warrant parameter reduction for physics-based regionalization methods for the Canadian basins examined and (2) catchment descriptors did not adequately represent the relevant hydrological processes, namely snow accumulation and melt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Even in countries with universal healthcare systems, excess mortality rates due to physical chronic diseases in patients also suffering from serious mental illness like schizophrenia is such that their life expectancy could be lessened by up to 20 years. The possible explanations for this disparity include: unhealthy habits (i.e. smoking; lack of exercise); side-effects of psychotropic medication; delays in the detection or initial presentation leading to a more advanced disease at diagnosis; and inequity of access to services. The main objective of this paper is to explore the feasibility and acceptability of patient partnership for developing an interactive guide to improve access to primary care providers for chronic diseases management and health promotion among patients with severe mental illnesses. Methods: A participatory action research design was used to engage patients with mental illness as full research partners for a strategy for patient-oriented research in primary care for persons with schizophrenia who also have chronic physical illnesses. This strategy was also developed in partnership with a health and social services centre responsible for the health of the population of a territory with about 100,000 inhabitants in East-end Montreal, Canada. A new interactive guide was developed by patient research partners and used by 146 participating patients with serious mental illness who live on this territory, for them to be better prepared for their medical appointment with a General Practitioner by becoming more aware of their own physical condition. Results: Patient research partners produced a series of 33 short videos depicting signs and symptoms of common chronic diseases and risk factors for the leading causes of mortality and study participants were able to complete the corresponding 33-item questionnaire on an electronic touch screen tablet. What proved to be most relevant in terms of interactivity was the dynamic that has developed among the study participants during the small group learning sessions, a training technique designed for healthcare professionals that was adapted for this project for, and with patient partners. Conclusion: This research has shown the feasibility and acceptability of patient partnership and patient-oriented research approaches to the R&D process of a new medical tool and intervention for patients with serious mental illness, and its acceptability for addressing inequity of this disadvantaged population in terms of access to primary care providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several countries have imposed bans on the wearing of face veils, a controversial option considered in Bill 94 by the province of Quebec in 2010. This paper examines non-Muslim women's support for the acceptability of the niqab in public spaces. Analysing the 2010 Quebec Women's Political Participation Survey, we find that key feminist arguments – that wearing the niqab is a woman's free choice, a matter of freedom of religion and a visible symbol of women's oppression – are important drivers of opinion. Their role in shaping opinion, however, is complex and mirrors divisions among feminist groups in the province. Additional attitudinal drivers include generation, exposure to the practice and openness to immigration. Equally important, our findings suggest that being a member of a racial minority, feelings of cultural insecurity and religiosity are of little consequence for thinking on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of ethno-religious intermarriage in Quebec over a century as an indication of integration in a province where minority/majority relations are distinct from the rest of Canada. Drawing on previous work by Kalmijn and others outside of Canada, we distinguish between cultural preferences and structural factors and continue a long tradition of such studies within Canada by using the manuscript censuses. We use data from 1881 (entire census), 1911 and 1941 censuses (newly available CCRI samples), to examine ethno-religious intermarriage among couples who were married at the time of the census for three successive generations thirty years apart. Using multilevel analysis we try to distinguish between the role of individual level determinants such as the ethno-religious identity, knowledge of French and English, level of education and immigrant status as well as characteristics of the areas in which these couples lived, such as type of milieu (rural and urban), sex ratio and degree of cultural diversity, separately for men and women. We confirm the importance of contextual variables both on their own and in addition to spouses' characteristics. The models are relatively stable over the entire period and point to the importance of structural factors as well as the ethnic diversity of the area at the contextual level; cultural preferences also play a role, most especially among the Jewish. British Catholics (mostly Irish) show a particularly high propensity to marry across language and religious lines, reflecting their special position in Quebec society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2014 electoral process of Quebec, migrants were central actors. The dominant identitarian-populist faction had targeted its attacks on migrants, particularly Muslims, and presented them as a threat for society since their religions and traditions were dangerous to the Quebec's secular state --inspired on the "French model"--. The 2014 election evinced a new role of migrants, traditionally marginalized in both the political and public arena. Academics and citizens mobilized to stand against the dominant populist media and the powerful official discourse. Besides, the high rate of participation among migrants determined the defeat of the separatist party. This paper is a documentary media research as well as a testimony, as a migrant myself, about the electoral campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods, as extreme hydrological phenomena, can be described by more than one correlated characteristic, such as peak, volume and duration. These characteristics should be jointly considered since they are generally not independent. For an ungauged site, univariate regional flood frequency analysis (FA) provides a limited assessment of flood events. A recent study proposed a procedure for regional FA in a multivariate framework. This procedure represents a multivariate version of the index-flood model and is based on copulas and multivariate quantiles. The performance of the proposed procedure was evaluated by simulation. However, the model was not tested on a real-world case study data. In the present paper, practical aspects are investigated jointly for flood peak (Q) and volume (V) of a dataset from the Côte-Nord region in the province of Quebec, Canada. The application of the proposed procedure requires the identification of the appropriate marginal distribution, the estimation of the index flood and the selection of an appropriate copula. The results of the case study show that the regional bivariate FA procedure performed well. This performance depends strongly on the performance of the two univariate models and, more specifically, the univariate model ofQ. The results show also the impact of the homogeneity of the region on the performance of the univariate and bivariate models.Editor D. Koutsoyiannis [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The truth and reconciliation commissions of Latin America and Africa are paradigms of transitional justice, often regarded as part of the process of transitioning from authoritarian to democratic rule. But truth commissions are also common in first-world settler states, which raises the question of what "transition" such commissions effectuate in Canada, Australia, and the United States. This paper examines the efforts of Canada' s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to resolve a controversy over a government relocation of Inuit families in the 1950s for which the relocatees were demanding compensation. Concurrent with historical controversies in the Canadian courts concerning Aboriginal rights and title, the historical controversy over the relocation raised questions about the Canadian state' s ability to "hear the voices" of First Nations people, who objected that their accounts of the past had been disregarded by government-contracted historians and courts alike. I argue that the Royal Commission' s efforts to hear the voices of Inuit relocatees, showcased in nationally televised hearings, was a phatic ritual in which communicative contact between marginalized citizens and the state was ritually established. The ritual was presented as a remedy for failures to achieve phatic communion among citizens and state--a condition of communicative contact held up as essential to the realization of liberal democratic ideals. The work of the Royal Commission and other truth commissions highlights the growing prominence of communication, particularly liberal communicative events construed as "open," "equal," and "free," as a concern of both theory and practice in liberal democratic polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is often characterized as a multicultural country with two official languages associated with two official population groups: the national majority of white, anglophone Canadians and the national minority of white, francophone Quebecers. Racialized minorities, including immigrants, are situated as the third node in the construction of Canada as a multicultural society. While there is often discussion of the minority/ majority relationship between the national majority and the national minority, or the national majority and racialized minorities, there is much less attention given to the relationship between Quebec and racialized minorities in the province. This paper examines the construction of difference in this relationship through the experiences of Pakistani Muslims living in Montreal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the fuel efficiency of commercial hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and compares their performance with respect to standard gasoline vehicles in the context of cold Canadian urban environments. The effect of different factors on fuel efficiency is studied including road driving conditions (link type, city size), temperature, speed, cold-starts and eco-driving training. For this study, fuel consumption data at the link level in real-world conditions was used from a sample of 74 instrumented vehicles. From the study fleet, 21 vehicles were HEVs. Among other results, the beneficial fuel efficiency merits of hybrid vehicles were demonstrated with respect to gasoline cars, in particular at low speeds and in urban (city) environments. After controlling for other factors, sedan HEVs were 28% more efficient than sedan gasoline vehicles. However, the low temperatures (below 0 °C) observed regularly during winter season in the study cities were identified as a detrimental factor to fuel economy. In winter, the fuel efficiency of HEVs decrease about 20% with respect to summer. Other factors such as eco-driving training, city size, cold start and vehicle type were also found to be statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the Latin American population in Canada based on data extracted from the 2011 census and from a survey conducted in 2013 with an oversample of Latin American immigrants, as well as from other sources. It deals with the ways in which Latin Americans are categorized and how they self-identify in Canada--with the U.S. reality as a point of reference--and with a focus on Latin Americans' cultural attitudes and values in a Québec-rest of Canada comparative perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional altruism in the form of a public-sector intervention and support for victims and social altruism generated by mutual aid and solidarity among citizens constitute a coming together in a crisis. This coming together and mutual support precipitate a decrease in crime rates during such an event. This paper presents an analysis of daily fluctuations in crime during the prolonged ice storms in Quebec, Canada, in January 1998 that provoked an electrical blackout. Of particular interest are the principal crisis-related influences on daily crime patterns. A first series of analyses examines the impact of altruistic public-sector mobilisation on crime. A significant decline in property crime rates was noticed when cheques were distributed to crisis victims in financial need in Montérégie, and hence they were attributable to public intervention (institutional altruism). Moreover, the rate of social altruism (financial donations), which was more substantial in adjoining rather than distant regions, was inversely proportional to crime rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel optimization model to maximize energy for short-term hydropower unit commitment is proposed. • A MILP formulation based on the efficiency curves is established. • The optimized solutions can be directly implemented in practice. • A real case study in Canada shows benefits of optimal solutions compared to historical decisions. This paper presents a linear mixed-integer formulation to solve the short-term hydropower unit commitment problem. It uses the pair of maximum efficiency points of water discharge and the power produced at the maximum storage for all possible combinations of turbines. The goal is to maximize total energy production for all periods. The objective function is calculated using the correction between the power produced at the current volume and the maximum storage and penalizes unit start-ups. Constraints on the maximum number of turbine changes are imposed to find a viable solution. Computational results are reported for 65 instances with two powerhouses of five turbines each located in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region of the province of Quebec in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a two-stage stochastic model for eco-efficient reverse logistics network design (RLND). The goal of this optimization model is to maximize the expected profit and minimize landfilling activities to give more incentive for materials recycling. The model considers a source separation option that allows the separation of the collected materials at an early stage of the reverse logistics channel. The quantity of waste generated and the recycling rates at the collection centers are uncertain due to the variable quality of the collected batches. We solved the model using the combination of a Sampling Average Approximation procedure and the ε-constraint method. An application is illustrated through the case study of wood waste recycling from the construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) industry in the province of Quebec in Canada. This research reveals that the source separation strategy provides better control of the impact of uncertainties, not only for the economic performance but also from an environmental perspective. The results highlight the necessity to evaluate the interaction between environmental policies to avoid conflicting objectives. Finally, the case study demonstrates the complexity of the reverse logistics network in the CRD industry and the challenge to achieve eco-efficiency under uncertainty. • A multi-objective stochastic model for reverse logistics network design is proposed. • The impact of the uncertain quality of the recycled materials is highlighted. • The proposed model evaluates the benefits of the recycled materials source-separation. • GHG emissions accounting is performed to comply with environmental regulations. • A case study targeting the recycled wood from the CRD* industry is proposed in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Quebecia terrane (Grenville Province) consists of over 95% juvenile 1.5 Ga oceanic arcs. • Slivers of crust with 1.8 Ga Nd ages divide Quebecia into a composite arc belt of terranes. • 1.5 Ga oceanic arcs were accreted to Laurentia after the 1.5 Ga Pinwarian orogenic event. • Some Quebecia terranes were rifted from the active margin and re-accreted further east. • Oblique tectonics may explain Pinwarian arc accretion without a major collisional orogen. There continues to be confusion in the geological community concerning the ages of crustal formation and crustal accretion within the central Grenville Province of Quebec. To clarify the geological history of crustal growth in the eastern part of the Quebecia terrane, sixty new Nd isotope analyses are presented from a 60,000 km2 area northwest of Baie Comeau. Most samples yield Pinwarian Nd model ages that suggest them to be derived from juvenile oceanic arc terranes. However, two large slivers with Paleoproterozoic TDM ages attest to the existence of hidden blocks of old crust, which divide the area of juvenile Pinwarian crust into a composite arc belt of smaller accreted terranes. The old crustal blocks probably do not reach the present surface, but represent an igneous crustal protolith of younger I-type magmatism. By comparison with a Mesozoic tectonic analogue, it is proposed that accreted juvenile arc crust with attached slivers of older crust were rifted away from an active margin to the west, and translated eastwards until blocked by the previously accreted Labradoria terrane. Although the Quebecia composite arc belt consists of over 95% of Pinwarian juvenile arc crust, the age of arc accretion was post-Pinwarian. The proposed oblique nature of the accretion process may explain the lack of a major collisional orogen at that time. This paper shows the usefulness of large-scale Nd isotope mapping of Precambrian crustal terranes to clarify complex processes of crustal formation and arc accretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]