Shifting Perspectives: A Response to Donald Goellnicht

[[issue]]2

L’Homme en question

Travail créatif: pièce de théâtre / Creative Work: PlayLa loi sur le budget du Québec 2010-2011 a rendu imposable l’indemnité des volontaires qui participent à des études de bioéquivalence sur les médicaments. Cette pièce de théâtre éthique rend compte du débat que ce point de la loi a suscité au sein d’un comité d’éthique de la recherche fictif.The Quebec Budget Act of 2010-2011 has made taxable compensation for volunteers who participate in drug bioequivalence studies. This piece of theatre reflects the ethical debate that this point of law raised in a fictional research ethics committee

Interwoven Temporalities: Reading Madeleine Thien’s Dogs at the Perimeter

This paper focuses on Madeleine Thien’s novel Dogs at the Perimeter (2011), a text that tells the stories of various characters whose lives have in distinct ways been shaped by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (1975-1979), a time in which an estimated 1.7 to 2 million people were killed or died as a result of state action. It engages with the politics of the knowledge that has been produced around this text to suggest that the challenges critics have faced while encountering the novel’s complex interwoven temporalities could provide an opportunity to engage with the limits of our various situated reading practices. It argues that Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s injunction to “go beyond the self-identity of nationalism towards the complex textuality of the international” may help guide us in learning to read representations of difficult histories across the North-South divide

After Obasan: Kogawa Criticism and Its Futures

One way of contributing to the growing body of cultural criticism that considers the cultural politics of emerging "ethnic canons" in Canada is through an examination of the large body of critical attention paid to Joy Kogawa's Obasan. Obasan can be understood as a symptom of how Canadian literary studies has attempted to reinvent itself by trying to address a "racial past" in a "multicultural present." Kogawa criticism should be at the centre of a contemporary rethinking of Canadian literary studies informing how critics have read and continue to read racialized texts and representations of histories of racism in Canada. It is also important to consider Asian American discussions of Obasan that are often informed by a tension between the cultural nationalist commitments of the Asian American movement and a concomitant desire to construct a coherent literary history with canonical texts

Un projet de recherche exempté d’évaluation éthique : une suggestion de clarification sur le processus d’évaluation éthique

Lettre à l'éditeur / Letter to the EditorCe texte suggère une clarification au sujet de l’application du texte de l’ÉPTC2 pour l’évaluation éthique en réponse au cas d’un projet de recherche qui a été exempté d’approbation par le comité d’éthique de la recherche de l’établissement.This letter proposes a clarification regarding the use of the TCPS2 for ethics review in response to the exemption from review of a specific research proposal by the research ethics board of the organisation

Finite Element Modeling Of The Hygroscopic Warping Of Medium Density Fiberboard

The objective of this study was to develop a three-dimensional finite element model of the hygromechanical deformation of medium density fiberboard (MDF) panels with various vertical density profiles subjected to moisture adsorption on one face. The theoretical model was based on three sets of equations: 1) three-dimensional equations of unsteady-state moisture diffusion, 2) three-dimensional equations of mechanical equilibrium, and 3) Hooke's law for plane isotropy, which takes into account shrinkage and swelling through the panel thickness. The finite element model was applied to six panels with various density profiles. For both the simulations and the experiments, the warping was caused by moisture adsorption from one of the faces of 560-mm x 560-mm x 12-mm MDF panels while the other surface and the edges were sealed. Physical and mechanical characteristics defined as a function of density and moisture content were used as model inputs. The model made it possible to capture the rapid initial development of maximum warp and its following decrease as moisture content equalized through panel thickness; the effect of the density profile on the level of warp caused by moisture adsorption; and warp fluctuations resulting from changes in the ambient relative humidity, and from the hysteresis in the expansion coefficient between adsorption and desorption. To validate the model, the warp development of laboratory MDF panels was compared to simulation results. The agreement between calculated and actual panel warping confirmed that the model could successfully be used to simulate moisture movement in MDF and the resulting warp, and to help in the optimization of panel vertical density profiles aiming at better stability of form in MDF panels. For the typical experimental cases, it was observed that there was a strong effect of panel density profile on the levels of warp and its dynamics. The levels of warp increased with average panel density. The panels with sharper density profile developed stronger warp compared to panels with an even profile. When the density profile was skewed towards one of the surfaces, the panel developed positive or negative warp and did not return to the original flat form

Numerical Prediction of Engineered Wood Flooring Deformation

Dimensional stability is of primary importance in the use of layered wood composites such as engineered wood flooring. It is largely due to the physical and mechanical properties and moisture content changes of each layer. Therefore, the non-homogeneous adsorption or desorption of moisture by the composite may induce its deformation, thus decreasing product value. The objective of this study was to develop a finite element model of the hygromechanical cupping in layered wood composite flooring. The model is based on two sets of equations: 1) the three-dimensional equations of unsteady-state moisture diffusion, and 2) the three-dimensional equations of elasticity including the orthotropic Hooke's law, which takes into account the shrinkage and swelling of each layer. The proposed model was used to predict the deformation of an engineered wood flooring strip following desorption by the top surface. The model was solved by the finite element method, and the calculated cupping was validated against experimental data. The results show that the proposed model can be successfully used to simulate the non-homogeneous moisture movement and the resulting cupping deformation in layered wood composites such as engineered wood flooring strips. For both predicted and measured deformation, roughly 80% of the cupping deformation appears after 3 days of conditioning. The low water vapor diffusion coefficient of the urea-formaldehyde film used between the surface and core layers of the strip plays a key role in the deformation process. After 42 days of conditioning, the model results overestimated the experimental results by 12% but were within one standard deviation of the experimental results. The model presented in this study appears to be a useful tool for product design purposes