Family Formation and Age at Marriage in Saint-Hyacinthe Quebec, 1854-1891

This article attempts to understand linkages between structural economic change and patterns of family formation in Quebec in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its focus is on marriage age, a demographic variable which, as European studies have shown, is sensitive to economic conditions and opportunities, and an important determinant of family size and structure. Men and women who married for the first time in late nineteenth-century Saint-Hyacinthe married two to three years younger than the provincial average. This pattern echoes that of the early capitalist wage workers studied by the proponents of the proto-industrial model in Europe.Cet article cherche à élucider les relations entre les modifications structurelles de l'économie et les modalités de formation des ménages au Québec dans la deuxième moitié du l9e siècle. Il étudie plus particulièrement l'âge au premier mariage, une variable démographique qui, comme les historiens européens l'ont montré, est sensible aux conditions et aux possibilités de l'économie, et détermine largement la taille et la structure des ménages. Les hommes et les femmes qui se mariaient pour la première fois à Saint-Hyacinthe, vers la fin du l9e siècle, étaient en général deux à trois ans plus jeunes que la moyenne provinciale. Cette tendance est comparable à celle des premières générations d'ouvriers salariés étudiées par les tenants du modèle de la proto-industrialisation

On Dads and Damages: Looking for the “Priceless Child” and the “Manly Modern” in Quebec’s Civil Courts, 1921-1960

This essay explores the legal rights and responsibilities of fathers as they were interpreted by Quebec’s civil courts between 1921 and 1960. The focus is on 59 published cases in which fathers were named as plaintiffs or defendants in actions where legal damages were sought in relation to incidents that involved their children, as either victims or authors of harmful acts. These lawsuits are analysed with specific reference to two key concepts, Viviana Zelizer’s Priceless Child (1985) and Christopher Dummitt’s Manly Modern (2007), with the latter found more useful for understanding the changing dynamics of masculine parenthood in this period.Ce texte traite des droits et responsabilités juridiques des pères tels que les ont interprétés les tribunaux civils du Québec de 1921 à 1960. L’analyse porte sur 59 litiges ayant fait jurisprudence où les pères sont impliqués soit comme demandeurs soit comme défendeurs. Il s’agit de causes dans lesquelles des dommages-intérêts légaux sont réclamés relativement à des incidents impliquant leurs enfants comme victimes ou comme auteurs d’actes préjudiciables. Ces poursuites sont analysées en faisant spécifiquement référence à deux notions clés : celle de Priceless Child, de Viviana Zelizer (1985), et celle de Manly Modern de Christopher Dummitt (2007), cette dernière s’avérant plus utile pour comprendre l’évolution de la dynamique de la parentalité masculine au cours de cette période

On dads and damages: looking for the “priceless child” and the “manly modern” in quebec’s civil courts, 1921-1960

This essay explores the legal rights and responsibilities of fathers as they were interpreted by Quebec’s civil courts between 1921 and 1960. The focus is on 59 published cases in which fathers were named as plaintiffs or defendants in actions where legal damages were sought in relation to incidents that involved their children, as either victims or authors of harmful acts. These lawsuits are analysed with specific reference to two key concepts, Viviana Zelizer’s Priceless Child (1985) and Christopher Dummitt’s Manly Modern (2007), with the latter found more useful for understanding the changing dynamics of masculine parenthood in this period.Ce texte traite des droits et responsabilités juridiques des pères tels que les ont interprétés les tribunaux civils du Québec de 1921 à 1960. L’analyse porte sur 59 litiges ayant fait jurisprudence où les pères sont impliqués soit comme demandeurs soit comme défendeurs. Il s’agit de causes dans lesquelles des dommages-intérêts légaux sont réclamés relativement à des incidents impliquant leurs enfants comme victimes ou comme auteurs d’actes préjudiciables. Ces poursuites sont analysées en faisant spécifiquement référence à deux notions clés : celle de Priceless Child, de Viviana Zelizer (1985), et celle de Manly Modern de Christopher Dummitt (2007), cette dernière s’avérant plus utile pour comprendre l’évolution de la dynamique de la parentalité masculine au cours de cette période.

Health Matters: The Dawson and Harrington Families at Home

This article focuses on the spaces associated with the extended family of John William and Margaret Dawson, particularly their nine-room, two-storey home at 293 University Street in Montreal. The Dawsons purchased their retirement house in 1893, as well as the house next door for their daughter, Anna, her husband, chemistry professor Bernard Harrington, and their eight children. The two houses are rich sources on how two generations lived together and separately simultaneously. The rich archival legacy of the Dawsons illustrates how Anna Harrington organized her house to regulate her children’s health, especially that of her son Eric, who suffered from a series of ailments and died in 1894.  “Health Matters” contributes to our growing understanding of the architecture and material culture of childhood by modeling an interdisciplinary method drawn from architectural and social history. Secondly, it argues that mothers directed their movements according to the condition of children; furthermore, it looks at how children organized household and backyard spaces, completely independently from adults; and finally, it shows how extended families constructed sophisticated boundaries while living in a decidedly fluid, pre-modern way.ResuméCe texte présente une exploration des espaces associés à la famille élargie de John William et Margaret Dawson, dont notamment leur maison de neuf pièces sur deux étages, située au 293, rue University à Montréal. Les Dawson acquièrent cette maison en 1893 pour y vivre pendant leur retraite. Ils achètent en même temps la maison voisine pour héberger leur fille Anna, son mari Bernard Harrington, professeur de chimie, et leurs huit enfants. Les deux maisons constituent une documentation très riche sur la manière dont deux générations peuvent vivre ensemble et séparément en même temps. Le patrimoine archivistique de la famille Dawson fait ressortir la manière dont Anna Harrington organise sa vie domestique afin de réguler la santé de ses enfants et surtout celle de son fils Eric, qui souffre d’une série de maladies avant d’en mourir en 1894. À partir d’une méthode interdisciplinaire située au carrefour de l’histoire sociale et de l’histoire de l’architecture, “Health Matters” ajoute à nos connaissances de l’architecture et de la culture matérielle de l’enfance. Le texte suggère à quel point les mères agissent en fonction de la condition des enfants et démontre comment les enfants organisent parfois, à l’abri de toute intervention des parents, des espaces de la maison et du jardin. Enfin, il démontre la façon dont la famille élargie peut ériger des frontières internes complexes, tout en vivant d’une manière fluide, définitivement pré-moderne

Property and Marriage : The Law and the Practice in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal

Between the 1820s and 1840s, the use of marriage contracts in Montreal changed. Firstly, over this period, marriage contracts were increasingly the tool of a propertied minority of the population. Secondly, a rapidly growing proportion of those signing a contract chose to keep the property of each spouse separate rather than creating a community of property. This choice was not limited to anglophones and was most pronounced when the husband was a merchant or "bourgeois". Thirdly, more and more of the wives of wealthier Montrealers appear to have had the power to administer their own personal goods. How this worked out in practice, however, has to be determined. Entre les années 1820 et 1840, trois transformations ont marqué l’utilisation des contrats de mariage à Montréal. D’abord, la signature d’un contrat devint progressivement le lot d’une minorité de possédants. Ensuite, une proportion toujours plus large choisit la séparation plutôt que la communauté de biens, surtout chez les couples dont le mari était un marchand ou un bourgeois, et cela, non seulement parmi les anglophones. Enfin, il semble que dans les familles très aisées, un nombre grandissant de femmes aient assumé la gestion de leurs biens quoiqu’on ne sache pas grand-chose sur l’exercice de ce droit

Frequency dependence of surface acoustic wave swimming.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from The Royal Society.Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are elastic waves that can be excited directly on the surface of piezoelectric crystals using a transducer, leading to their exploitation for numerous technological applications, including for example microfluidics. Recently, the concept of SAW streaming, which underpins SAW microfluidics, was extended to make the first experimental demonstration of 'SAW swimming', where instead of moving water droplets on the surface of a device, SAWs are used as a propulsion mechanism. Using theoretical analysis and experiments, we show that the SAW swimming force can be controlled directly by changing the SAW frequency, due to attenuation and changing force distributions within each SAW streaming jet. Additionally, an optimum frequency exists which generates a maximum SAW swimming force. The SAW frequency can therefore be used to control the efficiency and forward force of these SAW swimming devices. The SAW swimming propulsion mechanism also mimics that used by many microorganisms, where propulsion is produced by a cyclic distortion of the body shape. This improved understanding of SAW swimming provides a test-bed for exploring the science of microorganism swimming, and could bring new insight to the evolutionary significance for the length and beating frequency of swimming microbial flagella.Leverhulme Trust Research Projec

Synthesis, Characterization and Thermal Studies of Zn(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) Complexes of N-Methyl-N-Phenyldithiocarbamate: The Single Crystal Structure of [(C6H5)(CH3)NCS2]4Hg2

Zn(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) complexes of N-methyl-N-phenyl dithiocarbamate have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis and spectral studies (IR, 1H and 13C-NMR). The single crystal X-ray structure of the mercury complex revealed that the complex contains a Hg centre with a distorted tetrahedral coordination sphere in which the dinuclear Hg complex resides on a crystallographic inversion centre and each Hg atom is coordinated to four S atoms from the dithiocarbamate moiety. One dithiocarbamate ligand acts as chelating ligand while the other acts as chelating bridging ligand between two Hg atoms, resulting in a dinuclear eight-member ring. The course of the thermal degradation of the complexes has been investigated using thermogravimetric and differential thermal analyses techniques. Thermogravimetric analysis of the complexes show a single weight loss to give MS (M = Zn, Cd, Hg) indicating that they might be useful as single source precursors for the synthesis of MS nanoparticles and thin films

SNL evaluation of Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON).

Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON) is a networking technology which offers the potential to provide significant cost savings to Sandia National Laboratories in the area of network operations. However, a large scale GPON deployment requires a significant investment in equipment and infrastructure. Before a large scale GPON system was acquired and built, a small GPON system manufactured by Motorola was acquired and tested. The testing performed was to determine the suitability of GPON for use at SNL. This report documents that testing. This report presents test results of GPON system consisting of Motorola and Juniper equipment. The GPON system was tested in areas of data throughput, video conferencing, VOIP, security, and operations and management. The GPON system performed well in almost all areas. GPON will not meet the needs of the low percentage of users requiring a true 1-10 Gbps network connection. GPON will also most likely not meet the need of some servers requiring dedicated throughput of 1-10 Gbps. Because of that, there will be some legacy network connections that must remain. If these legacy network connections can not be reduced to a bare minimum and possibly consolidated to a few locations, any cost savings gained by switching to GPON will be negated by maintaining two networks. A contract has been recently awarded for new GPON equipment with larger buffers. This equipment should improve performance and further reduce the need for legacy network connections. Because GPON has fewer components than a typical hierarchical network, it should be easier to manage. For the system tested, the management was performed by using the AXSVison client. Access to the client must be tightly controlled, because if client/server communications are compromised, security will be an issue. As with any network, the reliability of individual components will determine overall system reliability. There were no failures with the routers, OLT, or Sun Workstation Management platform. There were however four ONTs that failed. Because of the small sample size of 64, and the fact that some of the ONTs were used units, no conclusions can be made. However, ONT reliability is an area of concern. Access to the fiber plant that GPON requires must be tightly controlled and all changes documented. The undocumented changes that were performed in the GPON test lab demonstrated the need for tight control and documentation. In summary, GPON should be able to meet the needs of most network users at Sandia National Laboratories. Because it supports voice, video, and data, it positions Sandia National Laboratories to deploy these services to the desktop. For the majority of corporate network users at Sandia National Laboratories GPON should be a suitable replacement for the legacy network

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty