North America: Mosaic, Community, or Fortress?

The author uses recent survey data to evaluate the plausibility of three competing metaphors for North America: community, mosaic, or fortress. While there is support for all three metaphors, the mosaic metaphor of separate national societies coexisting within a common economic space appears to most closely fit the empirical data. This model has been challenged by the profound influences of American concerns with security and an increasingly isolationist outlook toward the world. The author discusses how the various social, political, and economic forces currently at play may alter the North American trajectory in the future.El autor utiliza una encuesta reciente para evaluar la plausibilidad de tres metáforas en competencia sobre Norteamérica: las de comunidad, mosaico o fortaleza. En tanto exista apoyo para las tres, la del mosaico de sociedades nacionales separadas que coexisten dentro de un espacio económico común es la que se relaciona más estrechamente con los datos empíricos. Las influencias tan profundas que tienen las preocupaciones estadunidenses respecto de la seguridad, así como la perspectiva cada vez más aislacionista de Estados Unidos han cuestionado este modelo. El autor discute cómo las diversas fuerzas sociales, políticas y económicas actuales que están en juego pueden alterar la trayectoria política en el futuro

Understanding the New Public Outlook on the Economy and Middle-Class Decline: How FDI Attitudes are caught in a Tentative Closing of the Canadian Mind

While a single survey is a snapshot of a given moment in time, a series of surveys on the same topics over the years is akin to time-lapse photography, tracing the unfurling trends of public opinion. In examining the results of surveys conducted in recent decades by EKOS Research Associates on Canadians’ views of the economy, the prospects of the middle class, immigration and foreign trade, the time-lapse images show a dispiriting pessimism, especially among younger Canadians. For example, in 2002, nearly 70 per cent of Canadians surveyed described themselves as middle class. That figure dropped precipitously to just 47 per cent in 2015. Nearly half (46 per cent) of those aged 25-44 said they were earning less in inflation-adjusted dollars last year than their fathers earned at the same age. Fewer than one in five Canadians believed their personal economic lot improved last year. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents said they had fallen behind economically in the last year and the last five years. When a society sees shared progress as an imperative, it is truly dismal that fewer than one in five Canadians thought things had improved for them last year. Just over a month and a half before the October 2015 federal election, a survey showed that restoring middle-class prosperity was the top issue for all demographic groups, standing at 35 per cent of respondents between the ages of 35 and 49 and 55 per cent among those aged 49 to 64. Accompanying this incipient uneasiness about the future of the middle class in Canada is a concomitant drawing inwards, a tendency towards parochialism about aspects of foreign trade and immigration, which may be perceived as threatening an economic future already considered to be tenuous. For example, support dropped dramatically (from 47 per cent the year before the 2008 recession to 25 per cent last year) for the notion that Canadians, Americans and Mexicans should be free to work anywhere in North America. While enthusiasm for immigration traditionally declines during times of economic angst, current trends bear watching. Ten years ago, 25 per cent of Canadians surveyed said this country had too many immigrants; by 2015, the numbers of respondents who felt this way had practically doubled. Caution is urged, however, against reading too much into this, as these latter responses were given to a machine, not a live interviewer. People may have thus felt less inhibited about their answers. Meanwhile, a majority of Canadians surveyed think that foreign investment or foreign ownership of Canadian companies threatens national sovereignty. The 2015 results show a 10-point increase in the perception of a threat to sovereignty, compared to seven and 10 years ago. While deploring the state of the economy, the Canadian public remains at least somewhat unreceptive to the potentially ameliorative force of foreign direct investment, and this attitude appears to be worsening. Anxiety over Canada’s economic future helped the Liberals attain power in the 2015 federal election. Their win has infused the heretofore gloomy economic mood with a shot of hope. There can be no quick fix. Dispelling the gloom and replacing it with optimism will depend on the integrated success of efforts to liberalize trade, redefine attitudes towards immigration and change perspectives on foreign direct investment under the new federal leadership

Flow Cell Characterisation: Flow Visualisation, Pressure Drop and Mass Transport at 2D Electrodes in a Rectangular Channel

The reaction environment in a C-Flow Lab 5 × 5® laboratory-scale electrochemical flow cell was characterised in terms of fluid flow, hydraulic pressure drop and space averaged mass transport coefficient. The cell was studied in flow-by configuration with smooth, planar electrodes within its rectangular flow channels. The effect of a turbulence promoter (a polymer mesh with a volumetric porosity of 0.84) placed next to the working electrode was also evaluated. Electrolyte volumetric flow rates ranged from 0.3 to 1.5 dm3 min-1, corresponding to mean linear velocities of 2 to 10 cm s-1 past the electrode surface and channel Reynolds numbers of 53 to 265. The pressure drop was measured both over the electrode channel and through the whole cell as a function of mean linear velocity. The electrochemical performance was quantified using the limiting current technique, which was used to determine the mass transport coefficient over the same range of flow rate. Results were compared to well-characterised electrochemical flow reactors found in the literature. The mass transport enhancement factor due to the presence of the turbulence promoter was between 1.6 and 3.9 under the studied conditions. Reactant conversion in batch recirculation mode and normalised space velocity were predicted from the electrochemical plug flow reactor equation

Leadership as a social function

An address delivered at the twenty-second commencement convocation of the Rice Institute by Frank Pierrepont Graves, Ph.D., Litt.D., L.H.D., LL.D., President of the University of the State of New York and Commissioner of Education

A strategic audit of a management consulting firm

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1980.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY.Bibliography: leaves 206-207.by Dean Leonard Wilde II and Frank Charles Graves.M.S

La question du chômage et le caractère distinctif de l’électorat québécois au scrutin fédéral de 1993

Cet article s’efforce de tracer des liens entre l’enjeu dominant de la campagne électorale fédérale de 1993 et l’appui aux formations politiques, en cherchant à vérifier l’hypothèse que les choix particuliers de chaque région du Canada reflètent des attitudes différentes à l’égard de cet enjeu. Ayant décrit comment l’importance du chômage comme enjeu électoral varie selon les régions du pays, on montre que l’attribution d’une priorité à cet enjeu plutôt qu’à un autre est liée aux choix partisans, dont certains seulement sont constants à travers le Canada. On montre qu’une étiquette regroupant le « reste du Canada » est trompeuse parce qu’elle masque de nombreuses particularités régionales. Ceci amène naturellement les auteurs à aborder la question du caractère soi-disant encore plus distinctif du Québec. L’article conclut que des conditions économiques objectives, comme le taux de chômage et le fait d’être chômeur, ou une attitude non politique, comme l’insécurité d’emploi, sont moins pertinentes eu égard aux choix partisans que l’association établie par l’électeur entre cette question économique et la position d’un parti politique, association qui manifeste sans doute l’habileté des partis soit à façonner l’opinion publique, soit à s’identifier au courant d’opinion dominant dans certains milieux à propos des questions économiques.This article explores the relationship between party support and the most salient campaign issue in the 1993 Federal election. For that purposes, the authors test the hypothesis that party support varies from region to region due to the different attitudes manifested by electors of each region toward the issue of unemployment. Authors note that the methodological approach of contrasting Quebec with the "Rest of Canada" is misleading because it occults significant other regional differences. Authors also find that objective economic conditions (such as being unemployed and rates of unemployment) and subjective economic attitude (such as unemployment insecurity) do not satisfactorily explain variations in individual party support. They conclude that more significant is the association made by voters between a salient campaign issue and the relative positions of political parties, but that this association is hardly related to objective conditions, contrary to the argument developped by several authors

The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2001: The Longest Decade: Canada in the 1990s

In this chapter, Frank Graves examines the relationship between what he describes as the "official economy," as portrayed by conventional measures of economic performance, and public perceptions of the state of the economy. He also considers the public's understanding of the relationship between economic and social well-being, and the linkages between the public's perception of economic performance and their attitudes toward the redistributive impact of the State and its broader social role. The analysis in the chapter is based on data from quantitative survey and evidence from qualitative focus group conducted over the past decade.Well-being, Wellbeing, Well Being, Social Progress, Social, Societal, Society, Values, Social Capital, Subjective Well-being, Subjective, Redistribution, Growth

The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2002: Towards a Social Understanding of Productivity

In this chapter, Graves and Jenkins explore the attitudes of Canadians to productivity. The distinction between our standard of living and our quality of life is a powerful one for Canadians generally. The economic citizen who emerges from Graves and Jenkins data is relatively aware of the terms of the productivity debate. Canadians appear to have a broadly optimistic view of the economy, but give the country only a lukewarm overall rating of its productivity. Moreover, although improved productivity does not rank as highly as health care, education, the environment and crime prevention, the public does see it as an important goal, qualified by some scepticism. Nevertheless, the Canadian public's attitude towards productivity is qualified by a commitment to a broader sense of the quality of life. Graves and Jenkins report that Canadians place considerably higher emphasis on quality of life as a goal as compared with a high standard of living when these are traded off. This attitude also influences the public's reaction to policy debate about the productivity agenda. As well, in their words, "there is a significant gap in the understanding of how productivity should be dealt with between the residents of the boardrooms and the residents of the family rooms of Canada".Government, Productivity, Growth, Labour Productivity, Labor Productivity, Living Standards, Quality of Life, Policy, Public Opinion, Innovation, Jobs, Employment, Unemployment, Investment

A new procedure for the template synthesis of metal nanowires

A new procedure for the fabrication of metal nanowires by template assisted electrodeposition using porous polycarbonate templates is described. A thin sputtered film of silver (≤15 nm) was deposited onto one side of the template. The silver seed layer was used to catalyse electroless copper deposition and a copper layer was grown on top (300 - 500 nm) in less than 10 min. The copper layer served to seal the pores of the template and to form an electrode of high electrical conductivity. The copper layer was easily removed with a chemical etchant to aid the release of the nanowires from the template mask after growth. To demonstrate the process, copper nanowires were prepared by controlled potential deposition and characterised by SEM and TEM. This new procedure has the ability to be applied to the preparation of a wide range of metallic nanostructures over a wide range of scales. It avoids the need for an extended vacuum deposition step and has the advantage of using low cost metals in a combined short vacuum / wet chemical process so as to form the critical electrode layer for nanowire growth